Recommend me some albums that flow as a cohesive unit?

I am working on compiling an album. I already have almost all of the songs written and recorded, but I am attempting to do something I have not done in the past, which is to try to make a cohesive album that is like one long composition rather than a collection of individual songs.

Do you think this is impossible to do if you've already recorded the individual songs?

Can you name some albums that work like this? I'd like to listen to some albums along these lines, but can't think of too many off the top of my head.

The music is sort of psychedelic folk with some aspects of baroque/classical, if that helps with any album recommendations.

The way classical works like symphonies and string quartets move along really intrigues me, but I think it might be too late to approach it in that sense if I already have all the songs written... I may have to go with using the songs I have but recording interludes that link the songs.

Re-mix.

There's millions of Mixtapes by HipHop artists so why not psychedelic folk ?

Seems to me the psychedelic part is the binding factor here.

I can give you some suggestions if you want but I got to listen to the stuff first....

Boosh

Sounds like you want to do a concept album of some kind, but, with the songs already written it could be a challenge to make it work. There are many examples of concept albums, but the songs are typically related to eachother topic wise. Think Moody Blues "Tuesday Afternoon" or The Who's "Tommy". The Moody Blues actually had several albums where the songs merged into one another. Lots of other non concept albums have songs that merge into eachother (which maked it hard to break them up into MP3's).

Bavarian Fruit Bread by Hope Sandoval & The Warm Inventions. Ebbs and flows...

Not from a conceptual standpoint but from a sonic & pacing standpoint I would say Murmer by REM is pretty cohesive album.

Even the two songs that stand out as being pretty different from everything else on the album ("Sitting Still" & "We Walk") make for a nice change of pace within the flow of the album.

Maybe a little obvious: Dark Side of the Moon and The Wall

I can't think of any psych-folk examples, but Radiohead's OK Computer and Kid A are the first ones I thought of (after Pink Floyd).

Blonde Redhead's The Melody of Certain Damaged Lemons and Misery is a Butterfly both work really well as cohesive albums even though they have two very different singers.

Godspeed You! Black Emperor's Lift Yr Skinny Fists Like Antennae to Heaven! probably best fits what I think you're trying to do. It's a two disc album without any proper tracks. The insert includes a sort of map to denote the different movements, but it's really meant to be listened to continuously from start to finish.

Thanks for the suggestions... I will check into these suggestions. Some I'm a little familiar with, some I haven't heard at all.

The music is also almost completely instrumental, so I am not going for any kind of concept really in the sense of the "subject" of the songs... it is mainly that just having a collection of songs seems kind of strange to me for this music. For my music, I think the album-as-a-complete-work will work better as opposed to the pop "list of songs."

With the next one I work on, I am going to think of it as a whole album from the start rather than as an afterthought.

So far I have been working on making bridging interludes to the songs as a way of making it flow. The songs are also generally rather short, as I am not a big fan of a lot of repetition, and the music has to stand wholly on the sound and music itself, rather than any verbal imagery or "story." There are roughly 25 songs I am dealing with here, that is also part of what is making it challenging - that is a lot to bridge together.

I think The Who's Quadrophenia is a shining example of the concept/rock-opera album.

Perhaps you could figure out the best sequence of songs first (thematically and sonically), and create interludes, as you are already doing, to bridge the ones that need it.

Better yet, "Tommy".

This is actually exactly what I have been doing so far. The challenge I am finding is keeping the interludes interesting so that it doesn't just become the bit of noise or same sounding thing between every song.

Right now I have it set up as one long mix with that sequence of songs, but I am thinking that now that I have a rough sequence, I may have to disassemble it and make smaller projects to work on each transition, giving me flexibility to give each one the unique instrumentation and amount of time that the transition requires. Some of them work quite well as they are, others are pretty awkward.

When I've done this, some of my interludes have essentially become other songs, so much that on the CD, its listed as a song (has its own "marker", has a title, etc.), and I've let it go on for a couple of minutes or so.

This could easily end up being the never ending album I'll end up making transitions for my transitions.

Caigs's first Mandrake LP had some of those elements. It has individual songs, but there is no space between the songs. One tune just runs into the next (which is the way the performed on stage). Michael Kac also does some baroque sounding riffs on the harpsichord.

Duke by Genesis has this going pretty well. Some songs merge into others, some are more standalone.

An old, old, album - I don't know if you can find it - really comes to mind in the genre of psychedelic/folkrock/classical-ish is Of Cabbages and Kings by Chad and Jeremy.

But hey, thanks to the miracle of the internet....here's a link:

http://www.chadandjeremy.net/cj/lp6.htm

I bet some of the other ancients on SSS remember this one....

nat whilk ii

Have you ever checked out Booker T. and the MG's version "McLemore Avenue"?

Michael Franti & Spearhead - Stay Human

Follows a theme, but the songs are definitely seperate entities. Usually they're connected by brief "radio" interludes. A couple actors pretending to be DJ's at a radio station doing station ID's and updates on current events. So while you listen to the album it sounds like you're listening to the radio.

Fantastic record.

Would love to hear your stuff. Just for starters, here are two that come immediately to mind...

U2s "Joshua Tree"

Pink Floyds` "The Wall"

To me, a concept album takes you somewhere. What exactly do I mean by that, I`m not sure. I just feel that when the record starts I`m getting ready for a trip and then towards the end of the record, I`m returning home. These records are impossible to stop listening to in the middle and impossible to listen to in the middle from the end. You have to start at the beginning and go all the way with it.

I like Booshs idea of a re-mix... break songs down and have some sort of interlude and then have songs start up from that interlude... Interesting idea.

Would love to hear some of your tracks.

Yes, they both have singles on them but I would venture to guess that these tunes were part of the record

Yeah, forgot about the Radiohead stuff. Love those two records, and of course, The Bends.

Joe Jackson, Blaze of Glory.

Each song segues into the next, in various musical ways. Actually, on the original LP, each side was connected, so on the CD it's two streams of 6 songs each.