{"id":2392,"date":"2020-02-07T11:17:12","date_gmt":"2020-02-07T16:17:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/musicalurbanism\/?p=2392"},"modified":"2020-02-11T12:03:49","modified_gmt":"2020-02-11T17:03:49","slug":"mm-cooling-the-medium-b-w-big-trees-wake-8","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/musicalurbanism\/2020\/02\/07\/mm-cooling-the-medium-b-w-big-trees-wake-8\/","title":{"rendered":"M+M \u2013 “Cooling the Medium” b\/w “Big Trees” (WAKE 8)"},"content":{"rendered":"

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“Cooling the Medium” b\/w “Big Trees”<\/strong>
\nCurrent\/RCA Records WAKE 8 (Canada)<\/strong>
\nReleased in summer 1984<\/strong>
\nProduced by Daniel Lanois, Mark Gane and Martha Johnson<\/strong><\/p>\n

All album versions for this single\u2026 although apparently there’s also an alternate Canadian 7″ of “Cooling the Medium,” even with the same WAKE 8 catalogue number, that swaps out the album version for a 4:08 remix<\/a>. (I’ve never heard that version, nor can I find it online, so I won’t be talking about it here.)<\/p>\n

On the heels of the remarkably successful dance hit “Black Stations\/White Stations,” Johnson and Gane rolled out this upbeat yet smooth track, which feels like a Talking Heads cut pitched for adult contemporary radio. “Cooling the Medium” has its arty touches (the hypnotic layering of acoustic and electronic percussion, a loop of decayed vocals on the fade-out),\u00a0but a different set of musical priorities is noteable: Martha’s vocal is front and center, Mark’s guitar is given a glossy mix, and the minor-chord verse\/major-chord chorus structure does considerable heavy lifting to convey the song’s mystical theme. Background vocals by Shawne Jackson and Sharon Lee Williams, two accomplished Canadian R&B singers from the 70s, as well as Parachute Club’s Julie Masi underscore the U.S. urban radio format that M+M and its labels presumably aimed for once again. Lanois’s relatively light touch and rich bass tones (from Canadian bassist David Piltch) soon fell out of favor in R&B of the time \u2014 think of Aretha Franklin’s Who’s Zoomin’ Who<\/i> (produced by Narada Michael Walden) or Scritti Politti’s Cupid & Psyche 85<\/i> (produced by Arif Marden), both released the following year \u2014 but here is a preview of the sounds he would develop a year later on Peter Gabriel’s So<\/i>.<\/p>\n