Cosmogram
Editorial Reviews
John Harper, The Virginian-Pilot, Sept. 6, 2002
"Fans of singer/songwriters like Leonard Cohen, Bob Dylan, and Bruce Sprinsgsteen will find much to love about Jim Lampos.
About the Artist
Jim Lampos is a New York City based singer-songwriter who has gained international recognition for the power and beauty of his music. Touring extensively, he has performed hundreds of shows across the United States, bringing his unique acoustic-roots sound to venues ranging from clubs to concert halls, and coffeehouses to jukejoints. Cosmogram is his fifth CD. His previous four, Rye (2001), Starlight Theatre (2000), Innuendoes of Lafayette (1997), and Dreamland in Flames (1994) each...
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Album Description
Cosmogram, the fifth CD from acclaimed songwriter Jim Lampos, is a guide to roads less traveled and paths from another era. It is an intensely personal, introspective, direct set of songs, with a subtle political theme centered on the betrayal of the American ideal. These songs contain a map, describing the terrain they live on. There is a physical space that they move through, often quite literally. Most of the songs move along the Post Road, which was marked by Benjamin Franklin, who personally laid milestones along its rout to help the Post Riders gauge the distances between towns. Taking a measure by Franklin's standard is a philosophical touchstone, to be relished in these politically turbulent days.
Today, the Post Road runs past scrapyards and bucolic town greens, graveyards, schools, churches and jails down through New England, into New York, where it passes directly in front of Ground Zero.
Cosmogram is about dualities: light and shadow, honor and ruthlessness, truth and lies, love and bitterness. It tells of the cycle of seasons and the natural world, and also acknowledges the gritty surreality of manufactured, industrial realities. These songs see the flower struggling up through the cracks in the sidewalk, and the homeless person dying within reach of it. Not pretty, but real.
Ultimately, Cosmogram is about topography, about finding "the lay of the land" in both a physical and spiritual sense. It's about knowing where the solid, high ground is before the deluge hits.
Cosmogram
Cosmogram, Music, Jim Lampos, Americana, Avant-garde folk-blues with beautiful fingerstyle guitar, literate lyrics, and transcendent songwriting., Folk-Rock
Average customer rating:
- Stark, acoustic, backwoods rambler music...Lampos' best!
- Excellent
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Cosmogram
Jim Lampos
Manufacturer: Clocwyse
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD
 General
| Alternative Rock
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Alt-Country & Americana
| Country
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General
| Folk
| Styles
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Folk Rock
| Rock
| Styles
| Music
General
| Alternative Rock
| Indie Music
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General
| Folk
| Indie Music
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Similar Items:
- Rye
- Thunder Moon
- Dreamland in Flames
ASIN: B0001F0VGW
Release Date: 2004-01-20 |
Tracks:
- Franklin's Milestone
- Riding with Destiny
- Ithaca
- Winter Circle
- Walking on my Hands
- Digging in the Garden
- Wastelands
- Barroom Nights & Highway Days
- Happy Hour
- Who Will Save Me?
- Act of God
- Belle of Freetown
- Learning to Read
- Hidden, Transfixed, & Transformed
- Autumn Comes Again to New England
- Hoof it on Home
Album Description
Cosmogram, the fifth CD from acclaimed songwriter Jim Lampos, is a guide to roads less traveled and paths from another era. It is an intensely personal, introspective, direct set of songs, with a subtle political theme centered on the betrayal of the American ideal.
These songs contain a map, describing the terrain they live on. There is a physical space that they move through, often quite literally. Most of the songs move along the Post Road, which was marked by Benjamin Franklin, who personally laid milestones along its rout to help the Post Riders gauge the distances between towns. Taking a measure by Franklin's standard is a philosophical touchstone, to be relished in these politically turbulent days.
Today, the Post Road runs past scrapyards and bucolic town greens, graveyards, schools, churches and jails down through New England, into New York, where it passes directly in front of Ground Zero.
Cosmogram is about dualities: light and shadow, honor and ruthlessness, truth and lies, love and bitterness. It tells of the cycle of seasons and the natural world, and also acknowledges the gritty surreality of manufactured, industrial realities. These songs see the flower struggling up through the cracks in the sidewalk, and the homeless person dying within reach of it. Not pretty, but real.
Ultimately, Cosmogram is about topography, about finding "the lay of the land" in both a physical and spiritual sense. It's about knowing where the solid, high ground is before the deluge hits.
Customer Reviews:
Stark, acoustic, backwoods rambler music...Lampos' best!.......2006-01-11
some stats: COSMOGRAM (2004) 16 tracks Total time: 62:22 (no lyrics included)
In the 5 cd output of Jim Lampos (JL),this cd along with 2001's RYE,present JL live in the studio without any band or guest musicians. This cd far outshines RYE (which feels incomplete and repetative).
On his first 3 cds',his defining sound was less specific,at times masked within a eclectic "folk-country-world blues" musical stew.
For purposes of distinction, RYE and COSMOGRAM signify a shift for JL. Wether this shift is an evolution (ie no going back) or a way of greater musical definition to the masses,who can say? I feel the focus and clarity of this change welcome indeed.
Here, as on RYE, the stark acoustic beauty of his guitar and poetry rise to the forefront,unadorned. The synthesis of JL's lyrical prowess and guitar dexterity allow for Lampos's "wandering backwoods minstrel" persona to take center stage.
Where RYE suffers (somewhat) from less engaging songs (well,less mythic anyway)and rawer production, COSMOGRAM oozes with the vibes of authentic,modernish Americana.
My only quibble is the absense of printed lyrics,though in this format (solo) he's streamlined his imagery into slightly less cryptic bites, as if to show when you wander the backroads of America carrying your guitar, even too many words can drag you down.
This is a great place to introduce yourself to Jim, so sit back by the campfire, remember the wind & rain, fear no ghosts, and the owls hooting will make you both wiser.
"Walking on my hands
till the world looks better.
Dancing with a homeless man
in the rain,
with my lover.
Walking on my hands
till the world looks better.
Send me your thoughts
in an anthrax letter.
Walking on my hands
till the world looks better.
This silver-tongued
orator
is faking a stutter. (refrain)
Morning Gory, Evening Grace
See you there, Peace, AA
Excellent.......2004-06-12
I have been a Jim Lampos fan for years. I liked his earlier stuff with a band, but his recent acoustic CDs are my favorite. The songs are well crafted and moody like Nick Drake, with lovely guitar playing that reminds me a lot of John Fahey. There's a lot of poetry here both in the music and the words. Cosmogram is my favorite Lampos CD, but I really would recommend all of them. It's quite gentle in some ways, with songs about wistful days and the passing of time, like "Franklin's Milestone" and (my favorite) "Belle of Freetown" but it also has some of his most intense work yet, like "Walking on my Hands" and "Ithaca". Great CD to have in your car (after a war). ;)
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- Cracking Up [CD-single]
- Dead City Diary [Explicit Lyrics]
- Echo of The Big Bang
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- Everyday Superstar
- Facts of Life Pt.1 [CD-single]
- Facts of Life Pt.2 [CD-single]
- Falls Apart [CD-single] [Import]
- From the Milkbar [Explicit Lyrics]
- Glorius Triumph
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