The Shadow of Your Smile (Friends of Dean Martinez album)

Last updated
The Shadow of Your Smile
The Shadow of Your Smile (Friends of Dean Martinez album).jpg
Studio album by
Friends of Dean Martinez
Released1995
StudioWavelab Studio
Genre Instrumental rock
Label Sub Pop [1]
Producer Craig Schumacher, Friends of Dean Martinez
Friends of Dean Martinez chronology
The Shadow of Your Smile
(1995)		Retrograde
(1997)

The Shadow of Your Smile is the debut album by the American band Friends of Dean Martinez, released in 1995. [2] [3] The band included members of two Arizona bands: Joey Burns and John Convertino, of Giant Sand, and Bill Elm, Tom Larkins, and Van Christian, of Naked Prey. [4] [5] The band changed their name from Friends of Dean Martin right before the album's release, after threat of legal action by Martin's representatives. [6]

Contents

The album was considered part of the mid-1990s "Cocktail Nation" trend of instrumental surf and lounge music. [7] [8]

Production

The album was produced by Craig Schumacher and the band. [9] [10] Howe Gelb played organ and piano. [11] Convertino played a vibraphone on the cover of "Ugly Beauty", by Thelonious Monk. [12]

Critical reception

Professional ratings
Review scores
SourceRating
AllMusic Star full.svgStar full.svgStar full.svgStar half.svgStar empty.svg [13]
MusicHound Rock: The Essential Album Guide Star full.svgStar full.svgStar full.svgStar half.svgStar empty.svg [9]
Vancouver Sun Star full.svgStar full.svgStar full.svgStar full.svgStar empty.svg [14]
Windsor Star A [12]

Trouser Press wrote that "a lot of main writer Burns' originals have the jivey cool of an Angelo Badalamenti score, but the group's most potent and useful ability is to conjure up romantic visions of the desert at twilight." [11] The Chicago Reader thought that "Elm's exquisite steel-guitar melodies and the unusual colors and textures of Convertino's vibraphone formed the core of their countrified instrumental pop, but with the punchy rhythm team of Christian on drums and Larkins on percussive detail they added up to something with considerably more magnitude than kitsch." [4] The Vancouver Sun labeled the album "fuzzy wafts of lounge music, maracas, vibraphones and flamenco guitars in full reverberating, stereophonic sound with a '60s flare." [14]

New York called the band's versions of "Misty" and "The Shadow of Your Smile" "hilarious, spooky, and beautiful." [15] Rolling Stone determined that "the Friends sound like the house band in a ghost-town saloon, lacing their slow jams with the parched twang of landlocked surf music and the creamy scream of Bill Elm's slightly fuzzed pedal steel." [16] The Gazette deemed the album "lounge music for air-conditioned cocktail bars in the arid middle of nowhere." [17]

AllMusic called the album "a post-modern fusion of Santo & Johnny, Dick Dale and the Ventures, with a heaping side order of Tex-Mex border music." [13]

Track listing

No.TitleLength
1."All the Pretty Horses" 
2."I Wish You Love" 
3."House of Pies" 
4."Chunder" 
5."Armory Park/Dwell" 
6."El Tiradito" 
7."Given the Time" 
8."Swamp Cooler" 
9."Blood of the Earth" 
10."Misty" 
11."Ugly Beauty" 
12."The Shadow of Your Smile" 
13."Per Sempre" 

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References

  1. ↑ Cohen, Randee Dawn (Oct 1995). "Reviews". CMJ New Music Monthly. No. 26. p. 34.
  2. ↑ "Friends of Dean Martinez Biography, Songs, & Albums". AllMusic.
  3. ↑ Otero, Xavier Omar. "Five Guys Walk into a Bar …". Tucson Weekly.
  4. 1 2 Corbett, John (May 29, 1997). "Friends of Dean Martinez". Chicago Reader.
  5. ↑ Armstrong, Gene (September 15, 1995). "Neighborly sounds". Arizona Daily Star. p. 14E.
  6. ↑ Armstrong, Gene (August 25, 1995). "Tucson band transcends the lounge music fad". Arizona Daily Star. p. 6E.
  7. ↑ "Nudging the Cocktail Nation ever so slightly into the realm...". Austin American-Statesman. 14 Mar 1996. p. 34.
  8. ↑ Weatherford, Mike (9 June 1996). "Record companies jump into lounge scene with new releases". Las Vegas Review-Journal. p. 8A.
  9. 1 2 MusicHound Rock: The Essential Album Guide. Visible Ink Press. 1999. p. 459.
  10. ↑ Friends of Dean Martinez (1995). The Shadow of Your Smile (liner). Sub Pop.
  11. 1 2 "Friends of Dean Martinez". Trouser Press. Retrieved 9 January 2022.
  12. 1 2 Keene, Darrin (31 Aug 1995). "Friends of Dean Martinez The Shadow of Your Smile". Windsor Star. p. X20.
  13. 1 2 "The Shadow of Your Smile". AllMusic.
  14. 1 2 Monk, Katherine (14 Sep 1995). "Friends of Dean Martinex The Shadow of Your Smile". Vancouver Sun. p. C8.
  15. ↑ "Clubland". New York. Vol. 30, no. 20. May 26, 1997. p. 113.
  16. ↑ Fricke, David (Dec 28, 1995). "The year in recordings". Rolling Stone. No. 724–725. p. 116.
  17. ↑ Seguin, Richard (11 Nov 1995). "Friends of Dean Martinez The Shadow of Your Smile". The Gazette. p. C7.
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