It's possible that the Free Design were too pure for their time. While they were hardly the only late-'60s act producing lighthearted, sunny pop music designed for AM radio play lists, the group set themselves apart with uncommonly intricate vocal harmonies in songs of fearless innocence and idealism. Made up of siblings from a family with a rich musical background, the Free Design's initial run from 1966 to 1972 resulted in seven studio albums of the group's peculiar take on pop music. While their off-kilter Baroque pop was too strange (and perhaps too ahead of its time) to achieve mainstream success in its day, the albums were rediscovered by future waves of curious music-makers, showing up as a significant influence for Stereolab, Beck, Cornelius, and many others. Butterflies Are Free: Original Recordings 1967-1972 collects the Free Design's complete output from their initial period of activity, including all seven albums and various B-sides, mono singles mixes, and other rarities.
This in-depth collection shines a light on just how specific the Free Design were. Their sound relied on tight, meticulously arranged vocal harmonies (especially when the band expanded to include a fifth vocalist on second album You Could Be Born Again), which transformed their covers of then-contemporary pop tunes into surreal, somewhat intimidating singing workouts. On renditions of tunes made famous by the Beatles, the Mamas and the Papas, the Turtles, and others, the Free Design introduced a flood of voices and irregular harmonies that made the original versions seem unambitious by comparison. In particular, the group's reading of Simon & Garfunkel's "59th Street Bridge Song - Feelin' Groovy" elevates the lazy lope of the original into an otherworldly atmosphere of complex and layered vocal lines.
It's the band's original songs that reveal their true beautiful strangeness, however. Even in a time when plenty of acts were exploring psychedelic concepts and themes of mysticism, there's something especially unguarded about the Free Design's expression of new feelings, personal revelations, and emotional growth. Songs about the simple joy of flying kites, making friends with dolphins, and the importance of accepting differing perspectives were all sung with robust voices lacking even a hint of self-consciousness or irony. Their fifth LP, 1970's ...Sing for Very Important People, was presented as a children's album, but it included multiple re-recordings of songs from previous records, further highlighting the group's inherent tendency toward childlike curiosity and emotionally vulnerable sentiments. The Free Design's bright, chirpy style was easily overlooked as inconsequential elevator pop for the majority of their career, but diving deep into this collection reveals just how much of an impact their sound would have on coming generations. Buried beneath an exterior of over-enthusiastic bubblegum melodies and glossy chamber pop arrangements is a collective personality that's complicated, a little bit warped, and honest to a fault. The Free Design's early material continues to elude categorization even decades later, existing perpetually on its own terms.
© Fred Thomas /TiVo