Track Listing

Disc 1:

1. Birds Of Prey
2. Let Me Get Your Coat
3. Hurricane Judy
4. Drugstore Bust
5. This Is Really A Book
6. You Will Be Loved
7. Quicksilver
8. Where'S My Drink / Holy Janet Comes On Waves
9. Wake Up And Live
10. Our Time
11. Green Mountain Clover
12. Devil No More

Disc 2:

1. Quicksilver 2
2. Get Your Boots On
3. Build Havana
4. Dr. No
5. Back Seat Silver Jet Sighter
6. Malice
7. The Great Escape
8. Letters To Juniors
9. Altitude
10. Cowboy Weather
11. Armistage Shanks
12. Christmas Day 1923
13. Wake
14. Safety Zone

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #59184 in Music
• Released on: 2007-04-24
• Number of discs: 2

Album Description
Heavily influenced by cameras, the asterisk, loss of any kind, and Bill Monroe's falsetto, Future Clouds And Radar is the latest creation of Robert Harrison, best known as the leader of Austin cult-reggae-heroes Cotton Mather; hailed by NME as "the most exciting new guitar pop band since Supergrass", handpicked by Oasis to join them on tour, and most recently, featured on Little Steven Van Zandt's "Coolest Songs In The World Vol. 1". Paste Magazine hails this record as a "magnificent double-disc collection of Flaming Lips/13th Floor Elevators/ELO-inspired psychedelic pop gems. Move over, Robert Pollard."

Amazon.com
Robert Harrison, the creative force behind Future Clouds & Radar, set an ambitious goal for himself and his musical cohorts: to create a double album that sustained itself in every regard from beginning to end. Having suffered a serious spinal injury five years ago, he was confined to his bed for a couple of years as he slowly recovered. The 27 songs he brought to his band are not so much a portrait of a man on the mend as a look at the emotional and creative forces that whirl through an active mind in a still body. While the utter sprawl of pop smarts, riveting hooks, mesmerizing arrangements, and alluring lyrics bring forth comparisons to Robert Pollard, there's greater sonic variety (including judiciously deployed horns at crucial junctures) and painstakingly finessed production decisions. The songs call out for attention on first play; subsequent listens yield a world of subtle nuances and surprises. Harrison met his goal: file this next to the White Album. --David Greenberger

Customer Reviews

Engaging Music
As a "boomer" I grew up with the Beatles. One thing about the Beatles
is that every album was an adventure. Didn't much sound like the last
album but It was interesting and the more you listened the more you liked it. This album is one of those adventures. Certainly was curious at first
listen. Beatles/Squeeze/Joe Jackson/Robyn Hitchcock and many others came
to mind. Runs the gamut to melancholy to experimental. Great production
value. A really super piece of work. You may not like all of it but with
so much sound-alike junk out there, a independent spirit of creativity to relish.

From the Beatles to the Beyond...
Robert Harrison, the most criminally overlooked songwriter in the power pop arena, has returned. Cotton Mather fans will recognize his Lennon-esque voice, of course, but he has espanded on his previous band's Beatle-isms (about which I have never had complaints--Kontiki is one of the greatest power pop albums EVER) to include spacier, more psychedelic elements. Some songs, like "Hurricane Judy," are cut from the same CM cloth but the real highlights are the ethereal "Malice of Stars," the ridiculously catchy "Build Havana" and "Drugstore Bust," the ELO-ish "Safety Zone," and the folky "Green Mountain Clover." I'm not convinced that this wouldn't have made an even better album pared down to one really long disc (I can do without some of the Robert Pollard-style song fragments and the 7-minute Bob Marley cover, but that's just me), but my relief on having more Robert Harrison music--finally!--to enjoy forces me to give this five stars. Dig it!

fantastic!
First, a couple of corrections: Amazon's track listing is rather error-ridden. The songs "Where's My Drink?" (with question mark and no capital "S") and "Holy Janet Comes on Waves" are not a single track; track 6 on disc 2 is called "Malice of Stars"; and track 8 is "Letters to Junius" (not "Juniors"). Also: the customer who said this is "basically a Robert Harrison solo album" is wrong: there are tons of other musicians here, even though Harrison's the songwriter and main vocalist.

Anyway: this is a sprawling (intentionally), brilliant collection of songs that show the vitality of the sixties-style "can we use the kitchen sink for percussion?" approach to music. But even though Harrison's Beatle-esque melodic sense is strong (and his voice is almost a perfect cross between Lennon's and McCartney's), he does not confine his interests to a single decade. Witness the opening track, with a strong reggae feel...even if warped through psychedelia and prog-rock (yep, much of the song is in 7/4 time!), or the frequently noted Pollardian gene prevalent in many tracks, or Harrison's dubwise sonic deconstructions (achieved in 21st-century digital, rather than via tape manipulation, I believe).

Those who complain about the album's bewildering stylistic diversity miss the point...or rather, they mistake it in not noting that that is the point! Harrison (on FC&R's website) comments that listeners should think of it as 27-course meal, or as a travelogue: if you don't like something, just go to something else. At the same time, he's structured the sequence so that songs shine more brightly in their settings than removed, in isolation. A good example is the sequence from "Dr. No" through "Back Seat Silver Jet Sighter" through "Malice of Stars": three distinct moods, with segues and voices-off, form a sort of mini-version of the album as a whole.

Definitely one of the best of 2007 - and there's been a lot of excellent music this year.