| Star Trails | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
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| Studio album by | ||||
| Released | July 6, 2004 | |||
| Recorded | 2003–04 | |||
| Genre | Folk rock | |||
| Length | 43:56 | |||
| Label | MapleMusic Recordings | |||
| Producer | Spirit of the West | |||
| Spirit of the West chronology | ||||
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| Professional ratings | |
|---|---|
| Review scores | |
| Source | Rating |
| Now Magazine |   |
Star Trails is a 2004 album by Canadian band Spirit of the West. It was their first album of new material since Weights and Measures in 1997, and their first for independent label MapleMusic Recordings, but their final album of new material.
Spirit of the West are a Canadian folk rock band from North Vancouver, active from 1983 to 2016. They were popular on the Canadian folk music scene in the 1980s before evolving a blend of hard rock, Britpop, and Celtic folk influences which made them one of Canada's most successful alternative rock acts in the 1990s.
Weights and Measures is a 1997 album by Spirit of the West. It was their final album of new material for Warner Music Canada.
MapleMusic is a Canadian independent record label founded by Andy Maize, Jeff Maize, Mike Alkier, Evan Hu, Lorique Mindel and Grant Dexter in 1999 and based in Toronto, Ontario. Other investors include Gary Slaight, Michael Burke and Universal Music. In 2016, MapleMusic changed its name to Cadence Music Group.
The album cover is a long-exposure photograph with "star trails", taken at Mount Kilimanjaro and created by leaving the camera's shutter open for a minimum of 15 minutes.
A star trail is a type of photograph that uses long exposure times to capture the apparent motion of stars in the night sky due to Earth's rotation. A star-trail photograph shows individual stars as streaks across the image, with longer exposures yielding longer arcs.
Mount Kilimanjaro or just Kilimanjaro, with its three volcanic cones, Kibo, Mawenzi, and Shira, is a dormant volcano in Tanzania. It is the highest mountain in Africa, with its summit about 4,900 metres (16,100 ft) from its base, and 5,895 metres (19,341 ft) above sea level. The first people known to have reached the summit of the mountain were Hans Meyer and Ludwig Purtscheller, in 1889. The mountain is part of Kilimanjaro National Park and is a major climbing destination. The mountain has been the subject of many scientific studies because of its shrinking glaciers and disappearing ice fields.
In photography, a shutter is a device that allows light to pass for a determined period, exposing photographic film or a photosensitive digital sensor to light in order to capture a permanent image of a scene. A shutter can also be used to allow pulses of light to pass outwards, as seen in a movie projector or a signal lamp. A shutter of variable speed is used to control exposure time of the film. The shutter is constructed so that it automatically closes after a certain required time interval. The speed of the shutter is controlled by a ring outside the camera, on which various timings are marked.
"July" was the album's first single, and the band's first significant radio hit since "Tell Me What I Think" (from the 1995 album Two Headed ).
Two Headed is a 1995 album by Spirit of the West.
"Come Back Oscar" is a tribute to Calgary musician Oscar Lopez, a friend of the band's who had been absent from the folk festival circuit for several years due to a battle with depression. [2] In what several music critics described as one of 2004's most thrilling moments in Canadian music, Lopez joined the band at the Calgary and Edmonton folk festivals in July to perform the song. According to one writer for the Calgary Sun , "if there was a dry eye in the house, it was glass." [2]
Calgary is a city in the Canadian province of Alberta. It is situated at the confluence of the Bow River and the Elbow River in the south of the province, in an area of foothills and prairie, about 80 km (50 mi) east of the front ranges of the Canadian Rockies. The city anchors the south end of the Statistics Canada-defined urban area, the Calgary–Edmonton Corridor.
Oscar Lopez is a Chilean-Canadian guitarist, whose signature style blends Latin and jazz styles.
Folk music includes traditional folk music and the genre that evolved from it during the 20th-century folk revival. Some types of folk music may be called world music. Traditional folk music has been defined in several ways: as music transmitted orally, music with unknown composers, or music performed by custom over a long period of time. It has been contrasted with commercial and classical styles. The term originated in the 19th century, but folk music extends beyond that.
"King of Scotland", the album's second single, is about Idi Amin, who once proclaimed himself king of Scotland after becoming infatuated with the country on a state visit to Great Britain.
Idi Amin Dada Oumee was a Ugandan military officer who served as the President of Uganda from 1971 to 1979. Popularly known as the "Butcher of Uganda," he is considered one of the cruelest despots in African history.
Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It covers the northern third of the island of Great Britain, with a border with England to the southeast, and is surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, the North Sea to the northeast, the Irish Sea to the south, and more than 790 islands, including the Northern Isles and the Hebrides.
Great Britain is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean off the northwest coast of continental Europe. With an area of 209,331 km2 (80,823 sq mi), it is the largest of the British Isles, the largest European island, and the ninth-largest island in the world. In 2011, Great Britain had a population of about 61 million people, making it the world's third-most populous island after Java in Indonesia and Honshu in Japan. The island of Ireland is situated to the west of Great Britain, and together these islands, along with over 1,000 smaller surrounding islands, form the British Isles archipelago.
"Enough, Already Alright (Hello Cleveland)" takes the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame to task for being nothing more than "a glorified Hard Rock Cafe," with none of the grit and excitement that is usually associated with rock and roll music.
The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame is a museum and hall of fame located in downtown Cleveland, Ohio, on the shore of Lake Erie, that documents the history of rock music and the artists, producers, engineers, and other notable figures who have influenced its development. The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Foundation was established on April 20, 1983, by Ahmet Ertegun, founder and chairman of Atlantic Records. In 1986, Cleveland was chosen as the Hall of Fame's permanent home, and the museum was dedicated on September 1, 1995.
Hard Rock Cafe Inc. is a chain of theme restaurants founded in 1971 by Isaac Tigrett and Peter Morton in London. In 1979, the cafe began covering its walls with rock and roll memorabilia, a tradition which expanded to others in the chain. In 2007, Hard Rock Cafe International (USA), Inc. was sold to the Seminole Tribe of Florida and was headquartered in Orlando, Florida, until April 2018 when the corporate offices were relocated to Davie, Florida. As of July 2018, Hard Rock International has venues in 74 countries, including 185 cafes, 25 hotels, and 12 casinos.
