Description
Dreams of the Color Blind is the debut album by the American acoustic folk-duo Harrod & Funck (Jason Harrod and Brian Funck), independently released on Heated Brick Records in 1992. The album was produced, recorded and mixed by Mark Heard at his studio Fingerprint in Los Angeles, California; during two weeks in June 1992. Drums – played by Steve Hindalong of The Choir fame – were recorded at Neverland Studios in Los Alamitos, California. Words and music by Jason Harrod and Brian Funck, except the lyrics of “Nethy Bridge” drawn from a Jennifer Grant poem by the same name.
A critic in Metronome Magazine stated that “not since Simon & Garfunkel has an acoustic duo stirred me as powerfully as Harrod & Funck,” and the duo’s independently released album made it to No. 38 on the CMJ triple-A Top 40 chart (the Adult Album Alternative chart).
Jason Harrod and Brian Funck met as students at Wheaton College in Illinois, after friends recognized a similarity in their atmospheric folk songs and introduced the two guitarists. They were “discovered” in 1991 when they opened for Brooks Williams, a highly respected figure in the Boston folk scene, at a Wheaton concert. Williams reportedly was so moved that he almost refused to play his own set, and subsequently introduced the duo to Mark Heard, who agreed to produce their first album. (Dreams of the Color Blind turned out to be the last album Mark Heard produced before his death later the same year.) Harrod & Funck actually turned down several CCM labels, including a subsidiary of Word Records and Michael W. Smith‘s Rocketown Records.
Harrod and Funck fashioned a truly original folk sound on this, their debut album. The often awkward, unglued songwriting betrays their youth (most of the songs were penned while they were students at Wheaton College in Illinois), but they create some gorgeous acoustic landscapes with their ever-moving, mesmerizingly looping guitarwork. Producer Mark Heard recorded their Simon & Garfunkel-esque harmonies with a shimmering sound definition that exceeds the standards of a lot of major labels. The big sound of Heard’s inventively atmospheric pop arrangements (he uses stand-up bass, kalimba, electric mandolin, and even swamp gas) never overwhelms the acoustic picking and sliding that is the heart of these songs. [Darryl Cater, AMG]
> Apple Music (https://music.apple.com/us/album/dreams-of-the-color-blind/265075939)
CD tracklist:
01. Blue Sky Morning – 3:47
02. Cuckoo – 4:42
03. Unable – 3:52
04. Worn Out Welcome – 4:00
05. Guessing Game – 3:18
06. Nethy Bridge – 5:02
07. Moment Before the Last – 2:58
08. Stop and Stare – 4:03
09. Hand Draws Flowers – 5:46
10. Shadowdance – 5:59
11. Postscript – 2:03
Note: Simultaneously released on cassette and CD by Heated Brick Records.
Jason Harrod and Brian Funck at Fingerprint Studio during the Dreams of the Color Blind sessions, June 1992.
CREDITS. Produced, recorded and mixed by Mark Heard at Fingerprint and Neverland.
Musicians: Jason Harrod (Acoustic and Electric Guitars, Harmonica, Vocals), Brian Funck (Acoustic and Electric Guitars, High-string Guitar, Vocals), Mark Heard (Electric Guitar, Acoustic and Electric Mandolins, Accordion, Keyboards, Percussion, Kalimba, Swamp Gas), John Clark (Soprano Saxophone), David Miner (Double Bass), Tim Chandler (Electric Fretless Bass), Steve Hindalong (Drums, Percussion).
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