Album Release

Released 1968

The Free Design released You Could Be Born Again, adding youngest sister Ellen to the lineup. Having another voice allowed Chris to write more complex vocal arrangements, but otherwise, the album is very similar to the debut. It features several covers of current pop hits, including “California Dreamin’”, The Beatles’ “Eleanor Rigby”, The Turtles’ “Happy Together” and Burt Bacharach’s “The Windows of the World”– and despite the brash dual-trumpet solo attack on the Mamas & the Papas tune, these songs contribute to a faceless professionalism that diminishes the album’s impact. Chris Dedrick provides the most distinctive music, especially the gorgeous “Ivy on a Windy Day”. Opening with a ghostly choral section, the song eventually settles into soft pop, featuring an unusual chord sequence that wouldn’t sound out of place on recent Stereolab records– in fact, Laetitia Sadier has cited the band as one of her all-time favorites. The reissue appends two non-LP bonus tracks: an easy-listening holiday ballad “Christmas Is the Day” and the oddly titled “Close Your Mouth (It’s Christmas)”. — Dominique Leone, June 28, 2004

 

Released 1967

The band’s 1967 debut Kites Are Fun placed them squarely in the realm of sunshine pop acts like The Association and Curt Boettcher and Gary Usher’s Sagittarius, but with the unmistakably precious Greenwich Village sound. Its songs are uniformly well arranged and performed, sparkling with some of the clearest sound of the era, and are also consistently pleasant and inoffensive, offering an amiable take on the counterculture’s message of peace, love and freedom. The Free Design make no bones about their wholesome convictions in the title track: “We’d like to be a zillion miles away from everyone/ ‘Cause Mom and Dad and Uncle Bill don’t realize Kites Are Fun.” The intricate vocal lines, using sophisticated harmonies normally associated with jazz or chamber classical music, carry out its beyond-innocent charms. “The Proper Ornaments” adds in “ba-ba” vocal counterpoint reminiscent of the Beach Boys and The Mamas & the Papas, in addition to a baroque arrangement featuring harpsichord and trumpets; it’s as refined a piece of music as was released in the decade, though did the band no favors in hipper circles. — Dominique Leone, June 28, 2004