El Cielo

Infobox Album
Name = El Cielo
Type = Album
Artist = Dredg


Released = Oct 8, 2002
Recorded = George Lucas' Skywalker Ranch in Nicasio, CA and at Longview Farm in North Brookfield, MA
Genre = Progressive rock, alternative rock, art rock
Length = 57:08
Label = Universal
Producer = dredg, Ron St. Germain, Tim Palmer and Michael Rosen
Reviews =
*Allmusic rating|2.5|5 [http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=10:he811vd4zzpa link]
*ThePRP rating|5|5 [http://www.theprp.com/reviews/dredg1.shtml link]
*Pitchfork Media rating|5.6|10 [http://www.pitchforkmedia.com/article/record_review/17143-el-cielo link]
*Punknews.org rating|4.5|5 [http://www.punknews.org/review/1745 link]
Last album = "Extended Play for the Eastern Hemisphere"
(2002)
This album = "El Cielo"
(2002)
Next album = "Catch Without Arms"
(2005)

"El Cielo" is Dredg's second album, released on October 8, 2002. Like dredg's first album, "Leitmotif", "El Cielo" is a concept album. The title can be translated to mean "the sky" or "heaven" in Spanish, and to mean "peace and freedom of expression" in dreams.

About the album

One of Dredg's main influences on the album, "El Cielo", was a painting by Salvador Dalí entitled "Dream Caused by the Flight of a Bumblebee around a Pomegranate One Second Before Awakening", which is also what the acronym in "Brushstroke: dcbtfoabaaposba" stands for. The painting was unveiled in 1944 and clearly influences many of the album's core themes and song titles, for example a long-legged elephant ("An Elephant In The Delta Waves") with a papal insignia upon its back ("The Papal Insignia" was a song recorded for "El Cielo" but only saw release of "Industry Demos", recorded in 2001 and didn't make it onto "El Cielo"). Also pictured is a woman lying in a canyon ("The Canyon Behind Her"). Band members have been quoted as saying that this Dali painting is sleep paralysis, a literal representation of the condition from which Dali's wife actually suffered.

This is further supported by the translation of the Japanese spoken words from the beginning of "The Canyon Behind Her" - "This album was inspired by a painting titled: 'Dream Caused By the Flight of a Bee Around a Pomegranate One Second Before Awakening'. It is recommended that you view this painting as you listen to "El Cielo". It is as if one stimulus awakens other senses. In other words, it's about 'drawing music.'"

Early pressings of "El Cielo" were in a digipack with pictures of clouds bordered by runes. Later pressings of "El Cielo" are in a jewel case. The cover of the later versions are obviously the cover of the booklet, which is a sort of brown leathery texture with the band's name and the album name on it (although jewel case versions with the "clouds" cover are known to exist). The image provided on this page is the cover of the digipack version. The booklet which came with versions featuring the "clouds" cover are in full color, the booklet included in copies featuring the "brown leather" cover are in black and white. All releases of the album contain the same disc.

The booklet with "El Cielo" contains letters written by sufferers of sleeping disorders with descriptions of various experiences with or relating to sleep paralysis. Singer Gavin Hayes incorporates and expands upon the material found in the booklet for the lyrics to the album; All of the songs on the album (except the instrumentals, obviously) contain snippets of the text in the booklet.

The song "Brushstroke: Reprise" can be divided in two parts, the first part is a 40 second remastered version of the song "Same Ol' Road" and the second part is an extract from a song called "Wind At The End", this song was recorded by the band but not released on any studio album, EP, or DVD. The song can be found at [http://dredgonline.com/ dredgonline] under the "rare audio" section.

A demo of the song "Of the Room" appeared on their 2001 "Industry Demos" EP, and later on "Extended Play For The Eastern Hemisphere".

"El Cielo" has also been released in the SACD format. This particular disc is a multi-channel hybrid SACD. It is playable as a standard CD in a normal CD player. However, in an SACD player, the album is played in high resolution audio with surround sound.

The album was recorded at George Lucas' Skywalker Ranch in Nicasio, CA, and at Longview Farm in North Brookfield, MA. Producers included Ron St. Germain, Tim Palmer, and Michael Rosen.

Note: The song "Whoa Is Me" can be traced back to Shakespeare's "Hamlet," with the line "Woe is me," although this influence is unclear given that "woe is me" had become a popular phrase in the years following Shakespeare's play.

Rumors about "El Cielo" synchronizing lyrically and tonally with the 2004 movie Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind began circulating through internet forums in 2005. However, any instances of synchronization are quite clearly coincidental, as both the album and the film were in production at approximately the same time.

Track listing

# "Brushstroke: dcbtfoabaaposba" – 0:57
# "Same Ol' Road" – 5:14
# "Sanzen" – 4:34
# "Brushstroke: New Heart Shadow" – 1:33
# "Triangle" – 5:03
# "Sorry But It's Over" – 4:08
# "Convalescent" – 3:32
# "Brushstroke: Walk In The Park" – 1:40
# "Eighteen People Living In Harmony" – 4:28
# "Scissor Lock" – 3:23
# "Brushstroke: Reprise" – 1:33
# "Of The Room" – 3:44
# "Brushstroke: An Elephant In The Delta Waves" – 1:47
# "It Only Took A Day" – 3:16
# "Whoa Is Me" – 5:36
# "The Canyon Behind Her" – 6:40

Music videos

* "Same Ol' Road" directed by American McGee.
* "Of The Room" directed by Ben Rehki.

External links

* [http://watarts.uwaterloo.ca/~acheyne/S_P.html A good resource for Sleep Paralysis, one of the themes of the album]
*
* [http://site.traversingboard.com/elcielo.htm Analysis of El Cielo]