Album Notes

Puremusic.com calls it "a classic of pop re-invention; some of the greatest pop songs ever, done in uncanny ways, instrumentalized as you've never imagined." Nashville Scene calls it "....an audio lounge stocked with whatever the November 1965 Playboy deemed necessary for romantic conquest..." World-wide WFMU DJ Bob Brainen listed Aqua Velvet among his top five CDs of 2005. Aqua Velvet is Jim Hoke and Randy Leago., multi-talented musicians with massive studio and artist track records, revisiting and re-inventing some of the most intriguing, adventurous, or just plain coolest classic pop tunes of the 50's,60's and 70's. They draw from a "Pet Sounds"-sized instrumental palette and touch on styles from other times and exotic places. They may throw a Bach-like fugue into "Friday On My Mind" or mix a sitar raga with a barrage of jew's harps in "Happenings Ten Year's Time Ago". There is an elegant tango flavor on the Byrd's beautiful "You Showed Me", with french accordian and pizzicato strings, and they go to a sensuous, otherwordly place on the sexy "I Only Have Eyes For You" with smoky sax, slinky steel guitar and undulating bass flutes. These are BIG musical pictures, using BIG ideas and beyond that, they feel good. Amazed musicians here and in Europe who've heard advance cuts are asking, "Is there a whole CD of this stuff?". Now there is.