Sound Colour Vibration (Music | Art | Film | Technology | Science | Culture)

Multi-instrumentalist and composer Annette Peacock is an enigma in modern music, paving out a path that has never been walked before or after here. With a strong pallet for world musics, passionately engraved soulful ballad work, experimentalism and an emerging electronic technological advantage, Annette Peacock took the world by storm with her debut album on RCA Victor, I’m The One. Originally released in 1972 on the same label that had picked up David Bowie, her innovations through fusing different types of music are unmatched as is the graceful touch she gives to every one of her songs. Every song drips with something new, something bold and features some of the most talented and visionary musicians in the 70′s. With a very strong sense towards song writing and a beautiful and raw Dr. John, Betty Davis and Janis Joplin inspired vocal approach, Annette Peacock’s debut album I’m The One blends between funk, soul, pop, the avant-garde and so much more that a label outside of astonishing would be pointless. Music in the first half of the 70′s was seeing so many changes and Annette managed to soak all of it in and spill it out with some of the most refreshingly heavy yet smooth songs of the period.

Whenever we get word on reissue albums, it’s always a treat and the relaunch of I’m The One might top our list for the best reissue album of the year. Annette Peacock was at the forefront of technology with this record, utilizing a new Moog synthesizer model that would not be processed into the normal components such as keys or guitar but instead be laced over her vocal tracks. The way she controls the Moog over her vocals is transfixing and hypnotic behind the lush state of music she wrote for the album. With modern music utilizing a gamut of processing tools to enhance and modulate their vocals into areas they could not themselves, Annette Peacock serves as a catalyst to the directions music has taken and she blazes a trail with the Moog over her vocals that will impress anyone whose into the processed vocals of today. Annette Peacock has a lot more soul and talent in her body than most who choose to mask their vocals in effects, giving the inflections of these effects a brand new identity that I have never heard achieved outside of this record.

I’m The One is a massively heavy and one worthwhile record. It’s an album that will please all fans of fusion music and leans towards an experimental state of piano ballads and synthesizer dreams that create a world outside of description. Guitar solo’s, vibrant percussion, rich piano work and an embattled sense of synthesizer sorcery, I’m The One brings it every measure. The crowning achievement of the album is the ending piece which includes a very young Apache Bley, Annette’s daughter. Her daughter experiments on the piano and Annette creates a beautiful tapestry of sound behind her with found objects. You hear young Apache ask, “Okay, that was really nice Mom, but did you hear it? Did you hear me Mommy?“. If you have ever been around  a small child whose found music as a love, you know how special it must have been when Annette recorded this with her daughter. With a record full of such integrity in musical achievement, it’s such a perfect and honest way to end I’m The One and made me fall in love with the record in a way most albums don’t make me feel.

When I hear tracks like the Betty Davis style proto punk funk of “Pony” and the Dr. John esk voodoo swamp blues of “One Way”, the sophistication of the music registers off the charts and has some of the most interesting arrangements placed under one roof. I feel like Elton John, Dr. John, Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix and Miles Davis made an album when I hear I’m The One and the reissue of this album is probably one of the most important of the year so far. Both the first run of CD’s and Vinyl are out of print already so don’t miss out on any future pressings, they will go fast.

-Erik Otis

Order from Light in the Attic Records here: http://lightintheattic.net/releases/715-i-m-the-one