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Turns out the veteran Toronto art-rockers didn't have far to go.
The disc, out today, may well be the first children's record for grown-ups. Or, the first grown-up record made intentionally for kids. The group support its release with a show at the Phoenix tomorrow night.
"It's music for kids and their parents," Rheostatics bassist and singer Tim Vesely is saying recently during an interview, attempting to clear up the demographic question.
Whatever the case, the Rheostatics, which on this day includes Vesely, guitarist-singer Martin Tielli, drummer-guitarist Don Kerr, and producer Michael Phillip Wojewoda (guitarist Dave Bidini, who wrote the Harmelodia story, is at home fighting the flu), are about the only rock group from which you'd actually expect something as non-rock in spirit as a kids album.
ROCK AND KIDS
Sure, from The Chipmunks to Raffi through Sesame Street Fever to the new Rock 'n' Roll Elmo toys, pop music has long since worked its way into children's entertainment.
The Story Of Harmelodia resembles none of that, its closest musical and thematic touchstones being maybe Yellow Submarine-meets-Alice In Wonderland.
For a disc that was written and conceived for kids, it's amazingly consistent with the Rheos' previous albums. It features some of their most imaginative and beautiful work, and should appeal instantly to their cult fanbase.
"We wanted to experience 'not-rock' music, and we threw away those impulses," Vesely says. "But they boomeranged right back."
The results alternate between psychedelic orchestration and warm, folksy tunes that outline a fantastical story dreamed up by Kerr and written by Bidini. Comics Harland Williams and Sean Cullen were considered for the role of narrator, but after fears that they might eclipse the music, the job ultimately went to Bidini's wife, Janet Morassutti.
"I've been a fan of her voice from just talking to her on the phone for years," Kerr says. "It makes me happy to talk to her. It was a bit scary to have her come in and almost audition. Dave was a little worried. She just blew us away."
The Story Of Harmelodia tells the tale of Dot and her brother Bug, two children in the land of Harmelodia, who are swallowed up by a garden and venture to Popopolis, where music is imagined rather than physically played.
But it's a straight-ahead adventure story, not too heavy on morals, and mystical in tone. Some moments, including a song written by The Tragically Hip's Gord Downie, are deeply sad, others suitably goofy.
ILLUSTRATIONS
The album's storybook packaging includes Victorian-style illustrations by Tielli.
The ideas are purely the group's: The maniacal character Dr. Drumstein, "monkeybirds" in the "yobbinberry jungle," the fantastical "wingophone." Barenaked Ladies keyboardist Kevin Hearn wrote and sang two of the songs.
There is current talk of an animated film based on The Story Of Harmelodia. But in true Rheostatics fashion, the band's imaginations have already sailed elsewhere.
"What's the antithesis of a children's story?" Wojewoda asks.
"A porn film?" someone suggests.
"We're going to make music for outer space. Just beam it out into space," Tielli says.
"Someone suggested we just do sculpture from now on," says Kerr with a laugh. "I think we got the complexity and the orchestration and the cuteness out of our system. We might just make a rock album."