Imogen Moon hangs out at the Nicolston Dam with members of The Dap-Kings and The Roots on her striking and soulful single — premiering exclusively on Tinnitist.
If the title of the the Vancouver artist’s track seems familiar, give yourself a point for knowing your CanCon trivia: The song comes from her grandfather Doug Randle’s innovative, prophetic cult classic album Songs For The New Industrial State, which was released back in 1971 and reissued in 2009. For her July 21 EP When They Start Rebelling, Moon has reimagined six tracks from Randle’s album with the help of an all-star band that includes includes Grammy and Juno-winning producers and an incredible band that is responsible for the recordings of Amy Winehouse, Sharon Jones, Elise Legrow, Lee Fields and many more.
Backing Moon are Dap-Tones members Ian Hendrickson-Smith (sax), Dave Guy (trumpet), Tommy Brenneck (guitar), Nick Movshon (bass) and Homer Steinweiss (drums), along with Adam Scone on Hammond organ and Moon’s mother Joanne Randle on backup vocals. When They Start Rebelling was recorded at New York’s Diamond Mine Studios, with Hendrickson-Smith — also a member of The Roots — handling production and arrangements.
“This is a unique project,” understates Hendrickson-Smith. “Imogen’s voice is a perfect vehicle to bring her grandfather’s timeliness themes of social justice and the environment to a new generation. The perspective from her viewpoint is completely relevant to our world today, despite the music being written in the early 1970s. Imogen will make an impact not only on the music business, but as an activist.”
Indeed, When They Start Rebelling is a labour of love from three generations of family driven to bring these songs and stories to new light, more than 50 years since their initial release. Randle’s original album Songs For The New Industrial State was an innovative mix of folk harmonies and singer-songwriter compositions that married a textured mix of jazz, psych-pop and orchestral arrangements to create an album that has long been a cult-classic amongst environmentalists, music lovers and DJs. His lyrics are based in themes of environmental wellbeing, global warming, resource extraction, corporate dominance, capitalistic greed, and mental health issues, proving that in many ways, very little has changed in the past half-century.
The opportunity for Moon to re-imagine these classic songs and poignant lyrics grew into a three-year project to reinvent and revitalize these vintage songs for a modern audience. At centre stage stands 21-year-old singer-songwriter Moon, a largely self-taught artist with music in her blood. Her grandfather Randle was a musician, composer, lyricist and arranger who was schooled in classical music but whose true loves were jazz and opera. He worked in Vancouver and London, England in the ’50s, before relocating to Toronto in 1960.
Check out Nicolston Dam above, sample more music from Imogen Moon below, and follow her on Instagram and Facebook.
