Van Dyke Parks

Song Cycle

will toledo on da cover fo today

Pass

Preconceptions were in danger of stopping me appreciating this one; I'd expected either sweeping soundtrack style string arrangements (that's not really here but can be found elsewhere in his discog) or a Beach Boys informed set of pop songs with a side order of extra orchestration.

It was only when I recalibrated to accepting 'Song Cycle' as a cross between Joanna Newsom's (Van Dyke Park's co-produced) 'Ys' and the antiquated weirdness of Bob Drake's ever shifting and eclectic 'The Skull ... read more

This is a fairly interesting album with some pretty good songs. Its combination of its influences is neat and its one of the best examples of what most of what we would now call art pop sounded like in the 60's (at least when it wasn't be done by the most forward thinking bands ever to be formed like the beatles of the velvet underground)

Trippy Disney

"If you've heard any of Van Dyke Parks' solo records in your life, your first reaction was likely some variant on "I don't get it." That's okay, you weren't supposed to." - Jayson Greene, Pitchfork

A little harder to get into, and more odd than its suppose to by blending in an array of musical genres that meshes well and at times not but as time goes, its complex nature starts to strip away and what we have as challenging turns into something uncompromising. This record is as surreal as it is cryptic.

This is one of the more interesting albums from the 1967 psychedelic period. Van Dyke Parks loads the album with shifting tunes that can be folky one moment and an old school show tune the next. It’s packed with strings, horns and very charming lyrics and production. Definitely recommended if you’ve heard a lot stuff released from that period and want something new.

piper at the gates of dawn if it was good

unpredictable as fuck

Edit: and indeed this is growing on me (original score I gave: 80)

Van Dyke Parks makes the rapid changes of genres seem incredibly easy and childish. This highlights his complexity as a session musician

I might change the score

Good