Totem Soul 1989

Front Cover

Disc Surface

Booklet Page 1

Booklet Page 2

Back Cover / Booklet Page 3

Tray Inside

Tray Outside

In 1989, in a small college town somewhere in the American midwest, four young men holed up in a house in the woods and begat Totem Soul. A unique blending of folk, rock, country and reggae, Totem Soul was a brief flash of brilliance in the night prairie sky. Shaking Roots at the Moon, their only studio recording, went unreleased for nearly 20 years. Now available exclusively on the Internet, the sound remains fresh after all these years. Opening with Jay Harden's "Simple Life", the band explodes with a rubbery, stomping stampede of slide guitar, then slinks into "Acid Rain", Tony Dalrymple and Steve Rawley's dark exploration of intersections between self and reality. Harden's "Lion Song" loops through strangely familiar lyrics and melodies, and finds the band stretching out in the interstices, "And all that Cartesian stuff." Lear's Shadow, Harden's tour de force, caps "side one" (the band was thinking LP back in '89!) with a song that showcases the band jamming in several styles, creating "A swirling mass/of color and sound." Jhon Gilroy opens side two with "The Circle", an ode to life in the woods, carrying the torch and waiting for Nigel. Next comes Harden's "Mission Bells", a rollicking country-tinged ride through the folkways of his mind, then Dalrymple and Rawley's "Tiger Night", another of their darkly reggae-hued trips. The album wraps up with Gilroy's epic "Land of the Free", a soaring ode to life on the edge, where "We're living in the land of the free/But you can't afford a damn thing you see." With simple instrumentation of guitar, bass and drums, Totem Soul created a rich tapestry that transcends time and place. Totem Soul broke up shortly after recording Shaking Roots at the Moon.