Secret Agent 23 Skidoo To Release Amazon Original Album Wake Up The Dream June 29
By: Julie Musbach Jun. 15, 2018
You are getting sleepy...very sleepy....when you wake up, you will feel refreshed and energetic, with a strange compulsion to immediately write about how great this album is while hopping on one foot. Aaaaand........WAKE UP!
This summer 2017 Grammy Winner Secret Agent 23 Skidoo will release Wake Up The Dream, a new, all-ages Amazon Original album themed around the weird world of your dreams. Secret Agent 23 Skidoo and his wild cast of characters lead listeners on a funky trip through your mind with a parade of dream-inspired songs. Wake Up The Dream will be available for streaming exclusively on Amazon Music, as well as for digital download or physical purchase starting June 29th.
Retro stylings, soul divas, heavy beats, and high energy funk take charge on Wake Up The Dream as Secret Agent 23 Skidoo musically explores what dreams are made of. The concept of the album centers around the "Midnight Special," a faux radio show on the fictitious radio station WREM. The Midnight Special is a nocturnal broadcast that spins your dreams instead of songs, hosted by DJs "Sub-C" and "Uncle Unc" (aka your subconscious and your unconscious). Alongside an all-star cast of musicians who have played with an eclectic array of performers including Michael Buble, the Squirrel Nut Zippers, D'Angelo, and the P-Funk All Stars, Secret Agent 23 Skidoo has crafted a seamless netherworld of retro R&B and funk spliced with vivid hip hop storytelling.
About the concept of the album 23 Skidoo says "Half the songs on the album are about dreams, our imaginations set loose, our ambitions and hopes, the daydreams of our sunlit minds, and the collective dream of humanity as one." while adding "The rest is a collection of dreams, flights of weird fantasy with underlying meanings to be interpreted by the listener." Just as dreams never stop, but only shift into the next dream, the "interludes" of the album morph the song-dreams musically into each other. Gluing it all together, "Sub-C" and "Uncle Unc" hold down the broadcast duties in the sleeping brain of WREM Dreamtime Radio, announcing the dream-songs, taking a phone call from Free Will, covering subliminal weather, and traffic updates, and of course, running the idea donation drive.
Kicking the door open is "Wake Up The Dream" a Mardi Gras-flavored dance party get-down. The album's title track states the theme of the album: If we pay attention to our dreams, they will wake us up to our destiny, and only then can we make our dreams come true. "Where Did The Magic Go" is a fast-paced throwback track that sonically channels the innocence of 1960s love songs, on which a dragon and a unicorn discuss the evaporation of magic due to screen addiction, and join together to bring it back to the young world. "Makeshift Spaceship" tells the intergalactic story of a bored kid who receives mysterious blueprints that instruct him to build a spaceship from random basement junk and ends up in deep space for a meeting with aliens. What they tell him blows his mind open, and suddenly he can see time in a completely different way. The sweetly feminine lead vocals of "Dreaming Again" warm us with the soporific, syrupy feel of a beautiful sleep, where time slides from night to day, and dreams become daydreams.
On "The Stonecutter," an ancient Chinese fable becomes a Baltic horn influenced hip hop jam, where we learn about the dream of a stonecutter who is unsatisfied with his lot in life. His wish to become someone else is granted, resulting in a journey of realization that ends in an unexpected place. "You Caught My Eye" brings the return of famous and beloved Skidoo character Pickles the Pirate,, an Imaginary Friend who is now is singing a sweet sea shanty to his mermaid fishwife. Remember, just because he's imaginary doesn't mean his love isn't real! "Black & White Squares" uses the backdrop of a chess board and its warring pieces to question society's divisions, whether racial, gender or class, and to dream of a time where we play by different rules. "Broken Dreams" is the story of a poor sucker who lost his dreams and seeks the secret cure to bring them back home. The soulful "Tomorrow's Yesterday" delivers a sonic blend of P Funk, Cameo, and Stranger Things for this dream-song about a sleepwalking, sleep-talking hero who turns out to be receiving transmissions from his future self, who is time traveling back to warn himself that he needs to save the world through a simple act of kindness. Closing out the collection is "Story/Tellers" which reminds us that life is but a dream, and we are the figments of our own imaginations. The final dream-song blasts with hard horn funk to restate the theme of the album: That we are the stories we tell, so we'd better tell a good one!
ABOUT SECRET AGENT 23 SKIDOO
2017 Grammy winnerSecret Agent 23 Skidoo has racked up ten #1 hits on Sirius/XM global satellite radio, and has received glowing reviews in TIME, USA Today, People, and on NPR's "All Things Considered". He tours internationally, and has rocked sets at New Delhi's Buddy Daddy Family Bash, The Winnipeg Folk Festival, Lollapalooza, The Smithsonian and many more. He has released 7 studio albums, a live album, 1 piece of vinyl, 2 books, and his own hot sauce. He's produced the music for the US Library System Summer Reading Program's TV commercials for 6 years, as well as serving as its NY state official spokesman for 2 years, and is this year's national "Summer Reading Champion". 23 Skidoo travels constantly, rocks crazy shows, teaches rhyme writing workshops, produces weird funkiness, smiles often, and generally has a good time.
Secret Agent 23 Skidoo Online: Website - Facebook- Twitter- Instagram
WAKE UP THE DREAM TRACKLISTING:
- Wake Up The Dream
- WREM 1
- Where Did The Magic Go
- Innerlude 1
- Makeshift Spaceship
- WREM 2
- Dreaming Again
- Innerlude 2
- The Stonecutter
- WREM 3
- You Caught My Eye
- Black and White Squares
- WREM 4
- Broken Dreams
- Innerlude 3
- WREM 5
- Tomorrow's Yesterday
- Innerlude 4
- StoryTellers
- WREM 6
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