LOS ANGELES, Calif. — In 1966, when Brian Wilson prepared the follow-up to his masterpiece Pet Sounds, he employed the services of the Mississippi-born, L.A.-based musical jack-of-all-trades Van Dyke Parks as lyricist for the Beach Boys’ next album, SMiLE. As history would soon document, SMiLE became the most famous unreleased album in rock history, its “completion” not seeing daylight until a Grammy® Award-winning box set, The Smile Sessions, was released in 2011. SMiLE’s original plan was to incorporate many different elements of American music in an avant-garde fashion, its musical format leaps and bounds ahead of anything that existed contemporaneously. As SMiLE quickly grew in legendary terms, Brian and Van Dyke each went their separate musical ways, only to reunite briefly in 1972 for the Beach Boys classic “Sail on Sailor.” So it was perhaps with great apprehension and excitement that these two musical giants should finally reunite in 1994 for some unfinished business. This time, however, the mission would be complete. The musical terrain familiar: a paean to California. Omnivore Recordings is very proud to announce the release of the 25th anniversary special edition of Orange Crate Art, on June 19, 2020. It will be available as a 2-CD or 2-LP set; it’s the first-ever vinyl release of the recording. Both configurations contain three previously unissued session outtakes; the CD set also includes an entire second disc of previously unissued instrumentals. By 1994, the roles had been reversed and it was Van Dyke who coaxed Brian into the studio to be the singer of nearly a dozen new songs he had written as a tribute to his home away from home. Parks writes in the liner notes, “Though my roots are somewhere else, far away, my limbs are here in Southern California . . . it’s here . . . that I have struggled desperately for a sense of place . . . Orange Crate Art is a continuum of that which stood, freeze-frame, at the release of SMiLE.” Twenty-five years on, this album, which sounds like nothing before or since, has been majestically re-mastered by multi-Grammy®award winner Michael Graves. A limited edition run (300 copies) of orange vinyl copies will be available through Omnivore Recordings’ web site only. Orange Crate Art. . . before SMiLE. . . after SMiLE. . . it all makes sense now!
