Bobb Trimble - 1982 - Harvest Of Dreams

Bobb Trimble 

1982 

Harvest Of Dreams

Dimension One - Trust

A1 Premonitions – The Fantasy

A2 If Words Were All I Had

A3 The World I Left Behind

A4 Armour Of The Shroud

A5 Premonitions Boy – The Reality 

Dimension Two - Harmony

B1 Take Me Home Vienna

B2 Selling Me Short While Stringing Me Long

B3 Oh Baby

B4 Paralyzed

B5 Another Lonely Angel

Drums [Drumset] – Paul Martin

Violin – Mihran Aroian

Guitar Synthesizer – Don Cristie

Rhythm Guitar – Tim Pierce

“Incredible, multi-layered late night listening of the highest order... Without its few contemporary style-nods, you would bever guess ['Harvest of Dreams'] was originally released in 1982. One of the decade's best albums, filled with a mysterious charm that grows with each listen.”

– Byron Coley [album sticker notes]

“Maybe you don't know it yet, but (IF you buy these Bobb Trimble albums) you have just been handed the key to a secret realm, an alternate rock n' roll universe of dark despair, fragile hope, and gossamer beauty, a haunting personal soundworld that will always stay with you, within you...”

– Aquarius Records mailorder

“There is no album I own that has as much emotional complexity and depth as 'Harvest of Dreams'”

– Aaron Milenski, The Lama Reviews

“One of the most bewitching and genuinely outside broadcasts in modern private press history, the twin set of LPs cut by New England resident Bobb Trimble in the early 80s remain unclassifiable in terms of virtually anything else going on in or outside of the decade in which they were cut... Trimble was a visionary and arranger on a scale with Skip Spence, Brian Wilson and Blonde On Blonde-era Dylan... Highly recommended”

– David Keenan, Volcanic Tongue

“[Harvest of Dreams is] rated by most as the best psych LP of the 1980s. One of those obscurities (like D.R. Hooker) that blows even non-collectors away... The total impact is like walking around in one of Bobb's dreams. Melancholic, moving but also hopeful - an essential experience.”

– Patrick Lundborg, The Acid Archives of Underground Sounds 1965-1982

“['Harvest of Dreams' is] hard to describe in so few words, but no less an unparalled classic of the psychedelic canon”

– Other Music, Top 25 Reissues of 2007

For all but the most dedicated psychedelic pop obscurantists, the first general introduction to Bobb Trimble's sometimes unsettling world was a mid-'90s compilation CD called Jupiter Transmission, which included nearly all of Trimble's second LP, 1982's Harvest of Dreams, and about half of his first, 1980's Iron Curtain Innocence. This would seem to be sufficient, but most of the online overviews of Trimble's brief and obscure career (including a lengthy, detailed, and sensitive review of Harvest of Dreams by veteran psych collector Aaron Milenski) point out that the compilation CD changes the flow of Harvest of Dreams in subtle but important ways by deleting two songs and editing others. An unauthorized British CD mastered from vinyl was released in 2005, restoring the missing material, but the far superior 2007 reissue from the estimable indie Secretly Canadian is the essential document, both for its remastered (from the original tapes) sound and improved packaging and for the simple fact that Trimble authorized this release and receives royalties from its sales. In some ways, Harvest of Dreams sounds rather like a philosophical precursor to Neutral Milk Hotel's In the Aeroplane Over the Sea. Both albums are dominated by the singer/songwriter's cryptic but clearly deeply personal lyrics, which resist easy explication but often startle with the disquieting intensity of their imagery. Trimble has a more objectively pretty voice than Jeff Mangum (a breathy high tenor with occasional echoes of both Sparks' Russell Mael and, no kidding, Joni Mitchell), but he's equally fond of obscuring his vocals with layers of echo, reverb, and other effects. Rather than the horns and strings that enrich In the Aeroplane Over the Sea, the songs on Harvest of Dreams are overlaid with found sounds and extraneous noises: video game soundtracks, telephone busy signals, snatches of conversation between the bandmembers, and other everyday sonic detritus further smudge the songs, which at root are based on Trimble's psych-folk guitar and plaintive vocals.

Finally, both albums are somewhat perversely sequenced to some inscrutable structure: side one of Harvest of Dreams (subtitled Dimension One: Truth) is bracketed by "Premonitions -- The Fantasy" and "Premonitions Boy -- The Reality," which turn out to be very slightly different remixes of exactly the same recording, and also features a track called "The World I Left Behind," just over two minutes' worth of dead silence preceding the sonic onslaught of the mildly terrifying "Armour of the Shroud." The cacophony overlaid onto this psychedelic rocker has led some armchair psychiatrists in the obscuro-pop underground to suggest that Trimble was schizophrenic, a rather facile reading unsupported by facts. Similarly, in today's age of hyper-awareness of sexual predators, the fact that Trimble's on-stage backing band at this point in his career was a group of barely adolescent boys called the Kidds, a short-lived group broken up by suspicious parents, has led to some dark and unsubstantiated mutterings. The centerpiece of side two (Dimension Two: Harmony) is "Oh Baby," a 90-second blast of bratty punk metal written and performed by the Kidds without Trimble preceded by a lengthy burst of backwards tapes featuring the band; in the context of the rest of the side's more languid psychedelia, it's the most bracingly weird moment on an undeniably bizarre album. What keeps Harvest of Dreams from being merely a psychologically interesting curio of an eccentric singer/songwriter is that Trimble is undeniably talented. Although not as melodically gifted as either Mangum or other obvious points of comparison like R. Stevie Moore or Andy Partridge's pastoral-English-countryside mode, Trimble's songs work well within his limitations. In either incarnation, "Premonitions" is a genuinely catchy folk-rock tune, and both the playful "Take Me Home Vienna" and the much darker "Paralyzed" are tuneful in a way that the contemporary "weird folk" underground never quite manages. Harvest of Dreams is the sort of album that becomes more interesting when the listener delves into its back story, but, crucially, that knowledge is not a prerequisite for enjoyment.

There are so many reasons why so many people really wouldn't like this album. The first is Bobb's voice. I'm a big fan of Geddy Lee of Rush, who is often accused of sounding like a woman, but this guy REALLY sounds like a woman when he sings. Then there's the music, which is weird as hell; distant, bizarre and on the complete opposite end of the spectrum from anything that could be considered even remotely commercial.

None of that stops ME from loving the fuck out of this album, but many will not, so unless you are already inclined towards otherworldly ephemeral oddness, you might want to try before you buy.

So what is this album? It's the very, very rare psychedelic album from the late 60's made in the early 80's, although this album would have been super weird and out there in the late 60's as well - it just would have been slightly more understood back then. In the early 80's? Well, it's not a surprise this album didn't make Bobb Trimble a megastar, even if perhaps it should have in a just world where musical genius off the beaten track was actually recognized.

Oh yeah - it's totally beautiful, mesmerizing, hypnotizing, fragile and beautiful beyond comprehension. An absolute masterpiece. It sounds like nothing else you have ever heard.

Not all will agree...