Title: Every Waking Moment
Artist: Dr. Mindflip
Release Date:2014 July 29
Genre: Piano Pop
License: CC BY-NC-ND
Label: blocSonic / BandCamp

Introduction

With every waking Mindflip moment the good Doctor takes on a new adventure in his musical landscape. This release sees him move from being a solo artist dubbing in percussion and other instruments as necessary to his work to having a full band backing him.

Every Waking Moment

On this release the cast of characters has expanded to include:

Doctor Mindflip: vocals, piano, tenor horn, accordion
Mark O’Connell: backing vocals, lead
Aidan Guilfoyle: backing vocals, upright, mandolin
Darryl O’Connell: backing vocals, beats (drums), rototoms

There’s also a guest appearance by Right-turn Ricky doing vocals on the opener: ‘Rootless’.

I think I’ve gushed enough about how much I love Dr. Mindflip’s works in my review of Is Itching To Play back in May. And, all of those comments about his artistry and musicianship still apply.

This is still a very much Dr. Mindflip lead group: these are still piano compositions, and the piano remains front-and-center of the group. However, there is a bit more going on with this release than with the previous releases. The band serves to bring out a lot of excellent interplay in Dr. Mindlfip’s psychedelia. The band also brings out more nuanced textures, such as a very jazzy feeling to ‘Took A Walk’ and very 70’s feeling in parts of ‘All time low’.

Overall, the addition the expansion into a full band has heightened the Dr. Mindflip experience.

Conclusion

Once again, Dr. Mindflip has produced an excellent recording. All of the tracks are top-notch, and the expansion into a band has just added new dimensions and textures to the pieces. It has just occurred to me when I started listening to this work, with this third release, Dr. Mindflip has officially released enough music to record a full length album. And, given the strength of all three releases,it would be one helluva great album.

One last thing. Dr Mindflip has a Patreon page set up. This is an internet age twist on an old conept: patronage. The idea is to support him by making a per-song donation, similarly to the way composers back in the 1600’s through the 1800’s had patrons who would commission works from them. Check out Dr. Mindflip’s Patreon page. This is really a cool idea!