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Terry Draper — Infinity
((Not on label) no#, 2025, CD)

by Peter Thelen, Published 2025-03-07

Infinity Cover art

As usual, this latest release by Canadian composer and multi-instrumentalist Terry Draper, perhaps best known for his days in the late 70s as one third of Klaatu, is nothing short of a collection of brilliant pop songs — any of the tracks at hand would stand strong on its own. While Draper has assembled around nearly two dozen musicians and collaborators to make these tracks come to life, therein lies the secret — these pieces were written throughout his career, from the early 70s to the early 80s, to some (most) within the last twelve years or so; in addition some of these were recorded way back in the day as well, which partially explains why so many different musicians are featured on it, mostly guitarists and backing vocalists joining Draper on lead vocals and other instruments — piano, keyboards, drums, percussion, and more. The album production is superb throughout, every song has two pages of artwork in the booklet dedicated to it, and equally as surprising I suppose, is that every one of the fifteen songs will have its own video! The closing track, “The Sea,” is the oldest among them, written in 1973 (that’s pre-Klaatu), though the recording of it dates from 2021. “The Best Blies” dates from 1976, and features a great funky electric piano riff topped with slidey guitar and saxes, recorded in 2017. A bunch of them date from the 1980-81 period, including “It’s Your Love,” “Teacher Teacher,” “Make Love Stay,” and “Last Chance to Disagree,” the latter two recorded back around the time they were written, with several more written between 2013 and 2024 and recorded at various points along that trajectory. One might suspect that this would make for an uneven album, but that’s certainly not the case, in fact if the writing and recording dates had not been given, who would have known? Two of the best tunes on the album are back-to-back, first the WW2 documentary piece “Slapton Sands” followed by the happy and whimsical “It Must Be the Weather,” a song that could have been right at home on Rubber Soul or Revolver. But there’s plenty more here worthy of attention, the opening title track just one among them. An outstanding collection.

Filed under: New releases, 2025 releases

Related artist(s): Terry Draper

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http://terrydraper.com/

 

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