In anticipation of two new studio albums coming out this year, the eclectic musical group fronted by singer-songwriter Ed Hale has released a new collection of 14 rare and never before released tracks including the poignant September 11th tribute song Rebuild America…
SEVEN YEARS after its recording, rock band TRANSCENDENCE have released the September 11th tribute song Rebuild America for sale on a new rarities collection album entitled The City of Lost Children. The song Rebuild America was recorded in October of 2001 just after the World Trade Center attacks in New York but never officially released. The song was eventually turned into a music video. Watch it here on YouTube. Now the song is finally being released for sale with all proceeds to benefit September 11th victims’ families through the Robin Hood Foundation. The album also features 13 other rare and never before released tracks from all five of the band’s previous albums.
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In anticipation of the two new studio albums being released this year comes first this compilation of unreleased outtakes and rarities from TRANSCENDENCE that offers fans access to many of the band’s most hard to find hidden tracks and studio gems for the first time ever. The City of Lost Children is a compilation of studio outtakes from all five of the band’s officially released albums that spans eight years. The album also includes unreleased favorites such as the R&B flavored Whenever I’m with you — a familiar staple on various MTV shows over the years, and the September 11th tribute song Rebuild America; as well as two Brazilian-classic covers sung in Portuguese when singer Ed Hale was at the peak of his Tropicalismo obsession. From irresistibly catchy commercial pop (Jacquie) to psychedelic alt-rock (Kill the monkey), raw, urgent indie-rock (All is lost) to Beatlesque Brit-pop (Andrea’s Fault) and avant garde experimental instrumentals (Nothing is cohesive part II) The City of Lost Children offers a revealing glimpse behind the curtain of the creative and prolific musical collective known as TRANSCENDENCE with 14 never before released tracks that is sure to be a treasure chest for those who want a deeper look into the eccentric group’s past musical explorations. As diverse and eclectic as the song selection is, fans should find it a special collection that sounds like it could be an album in and of itself. And indeed now it is.
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The album features extensive liner notes written personally by the band with song credits, and plenty of details and back-story about each song. To read and download the liner notes and the lyrics to the songs fans should head to the band’s website www.transcendence.com.
The album is available for digital download on Napster, Yahoo Music, iTunes, emusic, Rhapsody, and of course amazon.com.
To listen to or download the songs or the whole album on Amazon.com click here.
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TRACK LISTING
- WHENEVER I’M WITH YOU (Outtake Rise and Shine)
- JACQUIE (Outtake Rise and Shine)
- ANDREA’S FAULT (Outtake Nothing is Cohesive)
- REBUILD AMERICA (Single)
- KILL THE MONKEY (Outtake Rise and Shine)
- FREE LOVE (Hidden track Sleep with You)
- EU SEI QUE VOU TE AMAR (Never released)
- VAMPIRE SONG (Outtake The Great Mistake)
- ALL IS LOST (Outtake The Great Mistake)
- ALL OF MY LOVE (Outtake AYHBV)
- O LEAOZINHO (Rare live track)
- MORNING IN VENICE (Outtake AYHBV)
- THE GREAT LEAP INTO THE FOREVER UNKNOWN (Outtake AYHBV)
- NOTHING IS COHESIVE PART II (Outtake Nothing is Cohesive)
The band’s personal notes about the album:
At first listen The City of Lost Children could be, more than anything else, a testament to how much great talent we have been lucky enough to work with over the last eight years in TRANSCENDENCE. From musicians to songwriters, producers, engineers and singers, we have been very lucky and truly honored by all the brilliant hearts and minds that have worked and played with us. TRANSCENDENCE has always been more of a community rather than simply a band of five guys. It’s a community of music, about music, founded on music, flowing out of music. Music was from the start the spark that ignited the formation of TRASCENDENCE. We came together as strangers attracted to one another because of our shared love and passion for music. Music of all shapes and sizes and styles. We stay together for the same reason. Over the years we have been blessed almost divinely to be open to anyone who wanted to stop by the studios, say hello and talk shop, and ultimately lay down something of their own on whatever project we happened to be working on. This album perhaps owes more to this idea than anything else we have ever released simply because it pulls together 14 songs from various phases of our working together as a group and spans a period of over 8 years.
Stylistically the Lost Children collection also bears witness to the fact that those pesky critics may be more accurate in their assertion that TRANSCENDENCE has been ‘all over the map’ than we ever cared to admit… hence the Nothing is Cohesive album title… but where has it ever been written that artists – of any medium — are supposed to stick with the same style throughout their careers or even within the context of one work? TRANSCENDENCE has always gotten off on exploring different musical territories as a group. In fact the more diverse and eclectic our musical explorations are the more stimulated we as individuals become. Truth be told, writing and recording a song such as Whenever I’m with you, a song which at first listen might appear to be far removed and light years away from “our usual sound,†was no more difficult or challenging than one of our more typical indie rock or brit-pop styled songs. With a few more listens it gets easier and easier to recognize the same five guys in that song. This collection of songs, as disjointed as it may be when gathered all under one roof, does run the gamut from R&B to straight ahead alt-rock to Brasilian pop to avant-garde experiments in sound, and yes it may seem odd that the same group and various other stragglers and fellow explorers found it so appropriate and commonplace to try our hands at so many different stylesof music. But luckily for all of us we never questioned this aspect of ourselves. We just forged onwards, critics be damned, and did whatever we wanted to in order to get ourselves off and maintain that high and inspiration that compelled us to come together in the first place.
Because of the general over the top eccentric nature of each member of the band, I have noticed that we have actually found it more difficult to create straight ahead commercially accessible pop and rock at times compared to the more esoteric and experimental stuff that has managed to make its way onto our albums. But that’s TRANSCENDENCE. At times this yearning to branch out and cover as many bases as possible has created problems for the band. With producers, with engineers, with record labels, distributors, DJs especially, critics, other musicians, and perhaps even with fans. Over the years we have had to make sacrifices artistically and cut certain tracks off of albums in order to make them more cohesive and streamlined. Even if we were madly in love with those tracks. At other times it was more of a question of just space or just having too many songs for one disc. And occasionally a single or two has gotten recorded and for whatever reason never found a home and made it to an album.
So more than anything else for us as a group these various reasons make The City of Lost Children a very special album indeed. It was an idea we had been harboring for years and just never had the time to see through. It may seem odd, and perhaps even strategically impractical, to release an album such as this when we have two new albums coming out in the same year. Most artists and labels save projects like this for dormant periods in between recording sessions or when the band is on tour. But as trite as it sounds because so many musicians say the exact same thing about their songs, almost every song we birth and take the time to explore and record as a group does have a very special place in our hearts regardless of whether or not it ever gets released. This makes The City of Lost Children a very very special project to each of us. For the first time we were able to sit down and reflect and reclaim all of our lost children and pool them all together so they had a permanent home and were lost no more. Compiling this album gave us all a sincere feeling of relief and satisfaction and completion. For music fans we hope that some get as much pleasure from being able to have access to all of these rarities for the first time under one roof as we did in putting the album together. As always thank you for listening.
– TRANSCENDENCE
Ed Hale, Ricardo Mazzi, Roger Houdaille, Fernando Perdomo, Bill Sommer, Allan Gabay
