VOICE FARM"BIGGER COOLER WEIRDER"
(Morgan Creek, 1991)
"Earth"
"Bigger Cooler Weirder", the final album by the duo calling themselves Voice Farm, lived up to at least part of its title, as it is probably the strangest of the albums I'll be featuring in my blog this month. While I didn't quite know what to make of it back then (as I was nowhere near as much into music then as I am now), it now seems to me that they were trying to be a slightly more serious electronica version of They Might Be Giants, the quirky indie-rock combo from New York. But don't get me wrong -- their comparatively short career notwithstanding, my use of the word "trying" doesn't necessarily mean they didn't pull it off.
This album is all over the place, for sure ... there's the avant-garde spoken-word piece "Ode To Buffy" (the Buffy of "Family Affair" fame, not the Vampire Slayer); the pseudo-rap chorus of "Free Love"; the jaunty, TMBG-like "Thank You"; the mainstream-ish pop of "Johnny Belinda"; the tenderly acoustic (as much so as they'd ever get) ballad "Stand By"; and they even throw in a unique take on the old standard "Come On a My House" for good measure. If you have an adventuresome ear, give this one a try.
Myke Reilly and Charly Brown only recorded this one major-label album (and a couple of independent ones) as Voice Farm, and as far as I know haven't made any music together since. A quick search of the web leads me to believe that Reilly is now a professional web designer (you have to admit, there aren't many guys who spell their first name "Myke"), and Brown has kept on playing music independently.
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