New York, NY (Top40 Charts/ MondoTunes) Australian musician Bruce Cropley has released his newest LP album, "Modal Podal." The record is unlike anything being produced today, and showcases in detail Cropley's remarkable elasticity, range, and scope. It has no definitive genre, containing 24 instrumental tracks comprising just over an hour's worth of quality listening. These tracks, all of which are original (except for "Go for Baroque" and "Funky Cantor" by the Harlan Bros., as well as some accompanying lyrics on "Loss" by Leilani Roosman) belong to as many genres as there are tracks on his album.
"Modal Podal contains a large variety of musical styles," says Cropley, understating the fact by an immeasurable expanse. "My aim is to stretch the listener's musical palette."
The truth is, however, that the variety of styles is somehow, someway, interwoven so that the overall result is a record that stands with its own character that blends from song to song in a way that melts the heart, it is so unlikely. The record's first track, "March into April," is a Sergeant-Pepper's-style parade of childlike happiness. This dovetails into "Pixie Rock," a fifties-era piano jam the likes of which
Topper or
Jerry Lee Lewis would be proud. "Pixie..." moves into a Latin-flavored bossa nova. The bossa nova begets a '60s era spy-film theme called "Razorwire." And on, and on, and on. Also represented on Cropley's record are compositions in the following veins (including but not limited to): jazz, lounge, ambient, easy listening, polka-esque, traditional Peruvian, traditional Arabic, and classic Southern California keyboard-driven pop rock.
The overarching similarity binding all these together, however (besides a stupifying finesse on the keyboard that is at first amusing, and becomes slowly staggering as the album progresses) is a general warmth and outstretched friendliness that Cropley communicates through an evident fraternal love affair he obviously has with music at large, the music of the world, the music of timeless humanity that is too-often pigeonholed and forced to conform.
Cropley's personal message to his fans, though, is far simpler.
"I hope you enjoy listening to my music as much as I did making it!" he writes with a presumable smile.
The enjoyment is there. Listeners are invited to share in it.
Bruce Cropley's LP record "Modal Podal" is available online worldwide. His seasonal audio satire with Alan Morris, "The Twelve Calls to PhoneCorp," is also available.
The LP "Modal Podal" is distributed globally by MondoTunes (www.MondoTunes.com) and is available at iTunes or www.top40-charts.com for convenient purchase and download.
