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Thursday, November 12, 2009

Forest For The Trees - Forest For The Trees (1997)

Forest For The Trees was basically a one-man show, masterminded by producer and musician Carl Stephenson, with a little help from his friends. Stephenson initially found success as a hip hop producer in the late 1980s, his greatest success coming from his work with the Ghetto Boys and Paula Abdul's animated friend MC Skat Kat. He eventually moved on to work with alternative rock bands, and this combined production experience attracted the attention of musical provocateur Beck. Beck enlisted Stephenson to co-produce the majority of his 1994 major label debut, Mellow Gold, which itself was a hip hop/alt rock hybrid. Obviously the album was a huge success, and this afforded Stephenson the profile to embark on a career as a recording artist in his own right. He gathered many diverse musicians, including Beck, to assist on an a largely experimental album, which included doses of rock and hip hip but also utilized various world music sounds and electronic flourishes. Interestingly the album took much longer to complete than anticipated due to Stephenson's having a nervous breakdown after the success of Mellow Gold. It has a similar vibe to Mellow Gold but is even more "adventurous", if possible. Surprisingly the first single, the trippy "Dream", was a minor hit, reaching #72 on the Billboard Hot 100. But follow-up "Planet Unknown" didn't catch on and nothing else was released from the album. Though he did release an EP entitled The Sound Of Wet Paint in 1999 that included two versions of the track "Wet Paint" as well as three new songs, nothing else has been released under the Forest For The Trees moniker since. It is rumoured that another album exists but has yet to be released, and Stephenson continues to dabble in production work for others.

Video for Dream

Download Forest For The Trees

1
Dream
2
Infinite Cow
3
Fall
4
You Create The Reason
5
Tree
6
Wet Paint
7
Stream
8
Ohm
9
Algorithm
10
Green Light Street
11
Planet Unknown
12
Thoughts In My Head

13 comments:

  1. Thank you. I've bought this lp several times and lost it several time. It's an album a little ahead of its' time. His lyrics were not exactly mainstream and I like it.

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  2. the link is down, i want this disc!! please re up

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  3. I just tried it and it's still working. ;)

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  4. Thanks alot! Was looking for this everywhere :)

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  5. THANKS!!! I was looking for this album!

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  6. The file not available

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  7. the link is down, can you reup, please

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  8. i just had Carl Stephenson's younger sister, Marci, on my radio program last week. She had a couple cool behind-the-scenes facts about him, the band, and the "Dream" video.
    The segment will be up on podcast today for anyone interested in listening to it.

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  9. Hi - any way that I could listen to this episode of your radio show? Had this album on my mind today and would be curious to learn more - thank you!

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  10. hi, i'm very interested - would the podcast be available still?

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