Tales From Earth

(unreleased Fred Lessing solo recording with guest musicians)

Recorded 1998 with a minimum amount of music gear on a 4-track recorder and transposed to PC and slightly enhanced at a final stage.

If you think you must have this poorly produced album, please mail me.

Guest Musicians

Paulo Silva - vocals

Nico Tavares - French horn

The Story

Earth was destroyed by war or some other man-made catastrophe some time ago. Basically all of mankind now lives on Mars. The album tells tales from Earth before the catastrophe. Or else it’s a radio programme broadcast by Radio Earth Memorial.

Track Notes by Fred Lessing

1. Welcome To Mars  A spacecraft arrives on Mars. Earth Memorial can be seen from the spaceport.

2. Marrakesh  A tale from Earth. In fact, a tale from my own travels, written back in 1981. Fully redone for and released on All Tomorrows.

3. Pop The Weasel  Co-written and recorded with Paulo ‘Franjas’ Silva, and a precursor to SP’AM. Took us some 20 minutes to do this one. Got some airplay in Portugal.

4. Rats   A nasty nightmare indeed. I wrote this straight after waking up.

5. Mayan Wind  About Joana (b. 1990), when she was still in her mother’s belly.

6. Out Of The Cold  Having a lot of fun with the Composer and sequencer sections on the KN3000 keyboard. The spooky voice in the middle is Joana saying her favourite line from the orginal Poltergeist movie.

7. Morgaine Le Faye  A really old song of mine, based on Marion Zimmer-Bradley’s “The Mists of Avalon”.

8. Oceans Of The Moon  Definitely one of my oldest songs, I wrote this when I was 16 or so. The imagery is of course inspired by Jules Verne. This was also my first song ever to be recorded on a PC, but it was definitely too ambitious for the gear that I had at the time. It really deserves the full Daymoon treatment.

9. Waking Heart  My first love song for Inês. This is another one I want to fully re-record as I don’t like the arrangement at all.

10. Dead Clowns In Wonderland  My brother loves this one. I’m not so sure about my own vocals – made my throat sore for days on end, I guess I wasn’t cut out for this.

11. Tokyo  Another really old song of mine, written when I was 19 or so. I wish I had a real jazz combo for this one. Recording Nico on the French horn was great fun, though! Got some airplay in Portugal.

12. Come Back  A 60s tribute love song for Inês, who had gone to Berlin for a few (too many) days.

13. Rocking Back To Earth  My own favourite. I wrote this one entirely in my head, sitting under a tree in Alentejo. I've dug it out again for Fabric of Space Divine.

14. Sixteen Tons  Here’s another one for my next album. A great classic, to be sung by Paulo ‘Franjas’ Silva.

15. There Are No Sharks  Another old song, and to be fully re-recorded with a proper piano and a proper piano player