BARBARA GOGAN WITH CAROLINE WINTERSON: Wheels

Barbara Gogan with Caroline Winterson

Wheels

© 2002 Barbara Gogan (660662957823)

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What a punk rocker does when she turns to meditation: A lush, relaxing combination of electric, acoustic, electronic, and natural sounds from the Catskills and Tanzania.

tracks

1 Roots
2 Hearth
3 Carnival
4 Heart
5 Calling
6 Mind
7 Return
8 Roots W/voice
9 Hearth W/voice
10 Carnival W/voice
11 Heart W/voice
12 Calling W/voice
13 Mind W/voice
14 Return W/voice

notes

The early seventies in London was a time of leftist ideals and women's liberation in rock music. It was the beginning of punk rock, and Barbara Gogan felt the pull of this musical revolution from a very early age. Leaving her Noyers-sur-Jabron commune in France, the 18-year-old Gogan moved into a London squat and became forever known as one of the founding members of punk rock in the London band The Derelicts.

In the post-punk '80s, Gogan's bandmates changed, as did her music. She fronted the London band The Passions, had two chart-topping singles, and will forever retain her pop-star status with legions of fans. The hit single, "I'm in Love with a German Film Star," appeared most recently on a 1999 Rhino Records release titled The Postpunk Chronicles Vols. 1-3. Here, Gogan's work is alongside those of such bands as REM, Joy Division, and Echo and the Bunnymen.

In the technologically driven '90s, Gogan paired up with electronic composer Hector Zazou to create Made on Earth (Crammed Records)Ña collection of heartfelt songs that among the electronic cognoscenti are head-to-head with Portishead and Bjork. Made on Earth was featured on NPR's All Things Considered in 1998. Gogan's latest release, Wheels, represents a lifetime devotion to the craft of making music. Wheels reflects Gogan's ongoing commitment to spiritual investigation, and her master-craftsmanship allows this investigation to achieve incomparable sonic beauty.

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  • author: Piero Scaruffi

    Barbara Gogan released her first solo album later in her career, after a number of distinguished collaborations and projects in the realm of avantgarde music. Wheels/ Ruedas (Gogan, 2002) is a 74-minute monolith that belongs to the category of new-age music in that it "promotes relaxation and revitalization of the human body", but is more closely related to Robert Ashley's spoken operas of the 1970s. The first seven tracks are spoken meditations on the seven "chakras" (or "wheels") accompanied by a slow, majestic, organic flow of electronic and natural sounds (birds, water, children, Tibetan monks). These are followed by the instrumental version of the same seven tracks. Each piece exhibits a cinematic quality: the celestial, slowly developing "om" of Roots / Ra¡ces, the pastoral vignette of Hearth / Hogar, the guitar reverbs of Carnival / Carnaval, the disjointed percussions and Heart / Coraz¢n, the animal voices of Calling / Llamando, the crickets and cosmic waves of Mind / Mente, the pure liquid tones of Return / Vuelta. Each sounds like a documentary, portraing the spiritual growth of the soul as well as the passing of time and the ever changing universe.

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