V/A - Jellyfish - Sensory Lullabies: The Ultimate Tribute to Jellyfish (2 CD) :: Not Lame Recordings - power pop and melodic rock record label, music and CDs

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V/A - Jellyfish - Sensory Lullabies: The Ultimate Tribute to Jellyfish (2 CD)

It’s here! 35 different bands from the US, UK, Japan, Australia, and Spain are each contributing tracks to a 2-CD Jellyfish Tribute Release covering both "Bellybutton" and "Spilt Milk" in their entirety (and in the original sequence), as well as a bunch of unreleased Jellyfish tracks. "Sensory Lullabies: The Ultimate Tribute to Jellyfish" is a Tribute Album such as has never been released before, and a tribute to one of the greatest bands ever! Be prepared for something truly terribly enjoyable! And, before we forget, every person who buys this CD from Not Lame will be entered into a very special drawing for one insanely cool looking, even better sounding Waterstone Guitar. There’s only one of these, though, but, boy is it COOL. Even if you don’t play guitar, this will want to *make* you learn to play it. These folks make great sounding guitars at really reasonable prices. To people on our email list, you’ve seen the details on this but go this link and check it out: http://www.waterstoneguitars.com/guit_wwas.shtml. Kudos the fine folks at Waterstone Guitars for working with Burning Sky Records and Not Lame to bring this to you all!

"Ok, lets start with this. Jellyfish is sacred. There are few bands in history that have such a short history, but such an amazing output of music. With that said, it takes some big kahunas to try to make a tribute CD to this band, and not have it suck. I can assure you, this certainly does not suck! The entire tribute CD will be out by late summer, but if this EP featuring tracks from the forthcoming tribute (along with some exclusive tracks) is any hint at the final product, it could very well be one of the best tributes CD ever. Highlights include threads "Joining a Fan Club", which might even rock harder than the original, Edison Gower's gorgeous "The Glutton of Sympathy", and Ken Morrison's nailing of "Calling Sarah", among others. What amazes me about this EP is the production and attention to detail these artists have put into the tracks. Not only are they very talented artists, but you can tell that they really really like Jellyfish. Extremely impressive stuff!" - Jay Anderson, Popbang Radio. A long-overdue tribute to Jellyfish? What on earth is there not to love and support about that? Don’t answer just pick this up and enjoy!!

Track listing below

From "Bellybutton"Disc 1

1 Ameritrash "The Man I Used To Be "

2Sextus "That Is Why"

3 Fred " The King Is Half Undressed "

4 DC Cardwell " I Wanna Stay Home "

5 Mike Elgert " She Still Loves Him "

6 Millicent Friendly" All I Want Is Everything "

7 Love Drive" Now She Knows She's Wrong"

8 Nigel Frayling-Kelly " Bedspring Kiss"

9 Wayne Cabral" Baby's Coming Back"

10 Ken Morrison" Calling Sarah"

Bonus Tracks

11 The Sonic Executive Sessions " Hello"

12 Ed James" Mr. Late "

13 The Taters "Queen of the USA"

14 Maxi Dunn "That Girl's A Man"

15 The Mayflowers "Always Be My Girl"

16 Negative Earth "Watchin' the Rain"

17 Mike Dees "Let This Dream Never End"

From "Spilt Milk" Disc 2

1 Readymade Breakup "Hush"

2 threads "Joining A Fan Club

3 Rockosaurus Rex "Sebrina, Paste, and Plato"

4 Pop is Art "New Mistake"

5 Enfadados "Glutton of Sympathy"

6 Black Sugar Transmission "The Ghost at Number One"

7 The Celebrities "Bye, Bye, Bye"

8 Gluttons of Symphony "All Is Forgiven"

9 Robert Baird "Russian Hill"

10 Benj Clarke & Bill Brandenburgh "He's My Best Friend"

11 Dave Stephens "Too Much, Too Little, Too Late"

12 Brand New Machine "Brighter Day"

Bonus Tracks

13 Loveshine "Ignorance is Bliss"
14 Checkpoint Charle "By Family Tree"
15 Steven Wright-Mark " I Don't Believe You"
16 The Vague "I Need Love"
17 The Pozers "Will You Marry Me?"
18 DiEL "Runnin'For Our Lives"
Song #1 - mp3
Song #2 - mp3
Song #3 - mp3
Song #4 - mp3
Song #5 - mp3
Song #6 - mp3
Song #7 - mp3
Song #8 - mp3
Song #9 - mp3

Customer Reviews

This "Lullaby" rocks

Reviewer: Dave Bundy

The bad news is that, while "Baby's Coming Back," Jellyfish isn't and never will. The good -- no, great -- news is that the next best thing to a fresh batch of Jellysongs is here -- an epic tribute album called Sensory Lullabies. Burning Sky Records' two-disc, 35-song tribute to Jellyfish is two and a half hours of Jellybliss, with each artist offering a unique and affectionate version from a catalog of songs that were so far ahead of their time when they came out a decade and a half ago that today's most cutting-edge bands still cite them as influences. These "Lullabies" won't be putting anyone to sleep. Alan Heaton and the Burning Sky team brought together 35 artists from four continents to produce complete covers of Jellyfish's two studio albums, 1990's Bellybutton and 1993's Spilt Milk, augmented with a handful of bonus tracks from Jellyfish's out-of-print-but-still-in-demand box set Fan Club. The collection faithfully captures the hooks, harmonies and heavenly effects of a band that is revered -- and rightly so -- beyond proportion of its output. Sensory Lullabies rocks. It rolls. It's a revelation. And it's full of wonderful surprises, even for those rabid Jellyfans who have listened to the band's entire catalog thousands of times. Predictably, the covers range from the incredibly faithful (Millicent Friendly doing "All I Want Is Everything") to the judiciously tweaked ("Glutton of Sympathy" by Enfadados) to the wildly divergent ("Baby's Coming Back" by Wayne Cabral). But all of them take the sonic complexity of Jellyfish and ratchet it up a notch. Curiously, despite the incredibly high production standards of Jellyfish's original releases, on most of the tribute tracks, the lyrics (and their genius) come out even cleaner and clearer. Careful listens to the new songs reveal other wonderful touches: Faint wedding bells on The Pozers' "Will You Marry Me?," the chugging build-up of Checkpoint Charley's "Family Tree," the sax accents on Robert Baird's "Russian Hill," and the speeded-up tempo of The Celebrities' "Bye, Bye, Bye." Some things, however, were not meant to be tampered with, and threads seemed to sense that in their cover of "Joining a Fan Club." The guitar solo and sax-and-piano interlude, arguably one of the most electrifying musical passages out there, brings out all the same goose bumps the original version does. Another treat is getting to hear songs like "Mr. Late," "Hello," "Will You Marry Me?" and "Always Be My Girl," recorded by Jellyfish as live versions, get the full studio treatment, with Ed James, The Sonic Executive Sessions, The Pozers and The Mayflowers respectively, adding the requisite flourishes that Jellyfish would have had they put them on a studio album. The two covers that take the most artistic license are "Sebrina, Paste and Plato" by Rockosaurus Rex and "Watchin' the Rain" by Negative Earth. In both cases, the bands dialed back the jangly guitars and slowed down the tempo. "Sebrina" particularly takes on a different feel, trading its bouncy, psychedelic sound for an almost-but-not-quite-heavy-metal tone. "Not that there's anything wrong with that," as Jerry Seinfeld might have said, but to the most devout Jellyfish purists, these will feel the closest to sacrilege. But the simple fact is that there isn't a bad song in this bunch. The songs are great, the musicianship fantastic. Each oozes creativity and reveals the passion Jellyfish continues to engender for listeners, fans and artists alike. And like slathering hot fudge on a delicious scoop of ice cream, every band adds a tasty new element to the already sweet sounds of Jellyfish. Heaton's decision to sequence the songs identically to their original release (with bonus tracks at the end of each disc), is a real treat for fans who've listened hundreds of times to Bellybutton and Spilt Milk. You know what's coming, but it's fun to see how each band decides to get there as one song ends and another begins. So if you've bought Bellybutton and Spilt Milk on cassette and CD multiple times to replace worn out copies or so you have car and home copies or if you can't stand to see them languish, unbought, at the used CD store, Sensory Lullabies is for you. If you've thought the $400 the Fan Club box set commands on eBay sounds reasonable, Sensory Lullabies is for you. (And maybe you can explain it to my wife.) If you've tracked down every side and solo project by every ex-Jellyfish member (including the two Moog Cookbook CDs), or you buy the CD of any artist who cites Jellyfish as an influence, Sensory Lullabies is for you. And if by some accident, like living under a musical rock for a decade and a half, you've never heard of Jellyfish, but you love beautifully crafted power pop, clever lyrics and want to be introduced to a great bunch of musicians, Sensory Lullabies is for you (but you better get your own copies of Bellybutton and Spilt Milk, too). Finally, as a professional journalist (and an amateur and unqualified rock critic), I owe folks this disclosure: Alan Heaton, the man behind Burning Sky Records and Sensory Lullabies, through an innocent e-mail exchange that began when I goofed up my shipping address ordering the Hello EP (a 5-song appetizer for Sensory Lullabies that is still for sale , by the way), took pity on my plight and offered to give me an advance copy of Sensory Lullabies so I didn't have to listen to Radio Disney or XM Kids for the whole drive on my family's summer vacation. That's how I got this sneak preview of this fantastic album and why I'm qualified to tell you that it's an unqualified success. Not only has his effort – and that of his team and of the 35 artists and bands who contributed to Sensory Lullabies – produced a wonderful gift for the Jellyfaithful, but it's made 36 hours in the car with my four kids a lot more bearable.

Interesting but it could have been more

Reviewer: Dan Barrett

If you're a Jellyfish fan (like me), you'll buy this album anyway, but honestly I was a bit disappointed. There are basically 3 types of performances on here. First, there are note-for-note recreations of the songs (about half the tracks). You have to respect the skill, persistence, and love of musicians who took the time to duplicate every sound effect and tiny vocal inflection; but sorry, Jellyfish did it better, so there isn't much point in listening more than once. (And the drum machine programming doesn't hold up to a live drummer.) Second, there are tracks that preserve 95% of the music but give it a different beat or tempo, making it more in-your-face. These are slightly interesting, but basically strip down the tunes to generic rock songs, without the wonderful texture changes and subtlety that made Jellyfish great. Finally there are a handful of daring tracks that really reimagine the song into something completely new. Although to my ear, only some of these work well, I wish all the musicians had taken this approach. Great music takes risks. On the whole, I probably won't listen to this album often, but I'm glad I heard it, and it's great to know the Jellyfish flame is still alive.