Garage Orchestra

Rolling Stone (8/25, p.90) - 3.5 Stars - "...Squealing and swooping, Cindy Lee Berryhill's voice is a natural gas. Even more wondrous is the San Diego guitarist's arranging..." Q (10/94, p.106) - 3 Stars - Good - "...strong collection of art-pop material which, while it maintains her past socio-political observations...it's a killer combination..." Alternative Press (9/94, p.65) - "...brings to mind the halcyon days of the Beach Boys' PET SOUNDS and SMILE...at the heart of it all, Cindy's never forgotten that she's writing pop songs, and she does it well, with a wonderfully catchy sensibility..." Option (Sept/Oct 94, pp.92-93) - "...Her best record yet..."

After the sophomore slump of 1989s unfortunately uneven Naked Movie Star, Cindy Lee Berryhill left New York City, did some traveling, and made a home in California, where she settled into a committed relationship, began writing new songs, and took a new approach to how she performed them. Berryhill became friends with Randy Hoffman, a percussionist who had a large collection of instruments in his garage, and as they began toying with her songs, they invited a large and diverse variety of musicians to join in. While the title of 1994s Garage Orchestra refers to the fact Berryhill and her collaborators worked out their arrangements during sessions in Hoffmans garage, it also nods to the ambitious but unpretentious sound of the album as conjured by the dozens of folks who took part in the sessions. The massed backing vocals, buzzing string sections, woodwinds, and Hoffmans tympani, vibraphone, marimba, and other noisemakers give the songs a sound thats big and rich with nuance, but the music still has a playful quality, just ramshackle enough to be loose but still painting the big picture she requires with the layers of sound at her disposal. On tracks like UFO Suite, Father of the Seventh Son, and Song for Brian, this music sounds like a homebrewed approximation of a classic Brian Wilson session of the 60s, with a dash of the Wrecking Crew and the Funk Brothers for additional flavor. And Berryhill was absolutely right to create this kind of scenery for her songs; Garage Orchestra strips away much of the social and political commentary of her early Anti-Folk material and instead gives a genuine sense of wonder to her tunes about love, humanity, and the curious world in which we exist, and as a vocalist and composer, she never sounded as eloquent or as fully engaged as she does here. In her way, Berryhill had just as much to say on Garage Orchestra as on her first two albums, but the greater dynamics and scope of these performances elevate the songs and the result is the finest album of her career. ~ Mark Deming

Although Cindy Lee Berryhills first two albums positioned her as a folky with some stray Patti Smith leanings, Cindy Lee Berryhill is, at heart, a closet Beach Boys fan. Her third album, Garage Orchestra, drops the folk-rock leanings of the first two records in favor of a singer/songwriter feel akin to early-70s Beach Boys classics like Surfs Up and Holland, with Berryhills guitar and piano ably supported by a much larger cast of musicians who color the tracks with vibes, strings, horns, and percussion. Berryhills trilling voice and oddball lyrical preoccupations are the same, however; the quirky shaggy-dog story Gary Handeman and the incredibly odd UFO Suite are among Berryhills funniest and strangest songs, while the Barenaked Ladies-like I Want Stuff and the gentle Brian Wilson homage Song for Brian cover the albums emotional poles. Much more solid than her first two records, both of which had some filler, Garage Orchestra is Berryhills first completely solid and intriguing effort. ~ Stewart Mason