Shannon
This album is warm and cozy from beginning to end. It feels like the feeling you get when you're listening to your all-time favorite song. You just want to sink right into it and have it never end. The arrangements are familiar and new at the same time, and full of painfully beautiful dreamscapes of sound.
Jayson Lorenzen
OMG these recordings are so nice. I love all these songs already but some I now like more in this form. I am so glad this was done.
Favorite track: FATHER SING.
Brian Wade
Wow! Absolutely beautiful!! I'm blown away on how Johnny and Mark can recreate these classics to give them such beautiful sound and feeling. This collection gives me goosebumps as I listen! Definitely a must purchase. You'll absolutely love it.
Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
Purchasable with gift card
$9.99USD or more
Record/Vinyl + Digital Album
THE STORY OF HUMAN DRAMA - TEN SMALL FRACTURES:
In 2019 we were invited to do a concert for the National University of Mexico UNAM. The offer was to perform an acoustic concert at Sala Nezahualcóyotl, a very famous theater on the campus of the university. When thinking about how best to do the presentation, myself and Mark Balderas discussed possible doing a Piano and acoustic guitar presentation, which we had done a few times over the years. But during those conversations we felt like we could really expand the presentation and make it more special if we incorporated strings and flute, and did strategic new arrangements of all the material. So, we brought in with our violinist Gerardo Pozos and our flautist Claudia Gonzalez and conferred with them about creating a new, exciting presentation of our songs.
The concert was one of our favorite concerts as Human Drama, and with all the work and preparation rearranging the songs for Piano, Violin and Flute, the concert felt very different and special. The old material found a new life; a new “vibe”. A new way to express the songs 30 years later…
So, upon returning Mark and myself had another chat and I mentioned to him that “this should be our next album” … new presentations and arrangements of songs for our past albums. We agreed that Human Drama’s catalog is filled with acoustic guitar, so we should try to avoid that even though most of our songs have been written around the acoustic guitar. We felt this would sound too “normal” and possible a bit lazy, which we (as a band) never have been. So, we made the decision to keep the instrumentation to vocal, piano, flute, violin, muted bass and add only a classical nylon string guitar that would play off of the other instruments. Also, we agreed to no double tracking or layering of tracks, with the goal being the album should sound like 6 persons playing together in a room, playing off of each other. That was the plan…and we stuck to it. This is as simple and pure of an album that we have ever made.
The highlights of the album for me are the beautiful piano arrangements by Mark Balderas. This is the foundation of the album. We took directly from the orchestration of a Human Drama track from 1995 called The Waiting Hour (once again), a re-make of a song originally on our first RCA release “Feel”. We had couple of ideas of songs to start with from our Sala Neza concert set, but we intentionally stayed away from piano based tracks from prior albums.
So, we went to work choosing the songs and slowly getting the piano arrangements completed and recorded. We took our time choosing ten songs that we felt would translate well in this new musical configuration.
Over the course of a year and a half we recorded TEN SMALL FRACTURES. Mark and I were joined by; Lynn Bertles and Gerardo Pozos on violin, Paul Pate and Claudia Gonzalez on flute, Steve Fuxan on muted bass, and Tim Grove, Steve Caton and Richard Lo Guercio on nylon string guitar.
Regarding the title of the album. This came from many questions by interviewers over the years about the personal issues I discuss in my lyrics, and the honesty of my approach. “Is it difficult to expose yourself as you do? Are the songs painful to relive? My answer to this in one interview was “No, not at all. I feel the story, then write the story, record the story, and then let them go. The songs may be painful in the moment, but they are not like broken bones that stay broken. They are more like small fractures…”
Johnny Indovina 2023
Includes unlimited streaming of TEN SMALL FRACTURES
via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
...more
ships out within 3 days
$29.98USDor more
Record/Vinyl + Digital Album
THE STORY OF HUMAN DRAMA - TEN SMALL FRACTURES:
In 2019 we were invited to do a concert for the National University of Mexico UNAM. The offer was to perform an acoustic concert at Sala Nezahualcóyotl, a very famous theater on the campus of the university. When thinking about how best to do the presentation, myself and Mark Balderas discussed possible doing a Piano and acoustic guitar presentation, which we had done a few times over the years. But during those conversations we felt like we could really expand the presentation and make it more special if we incorporated strings and flute, and did strategic new arrangements of all the material. So, we brought in with our violinist Gerardo Pozos and our flautist Claudia Gonzalez and conferred with them about creating a new, exciting presentation of our songs.
The concert was one of our favorite concerts as Human Drama, and with all the work and preparation rearranging the songs for Piano, Violin and Flute, the concert felt very different and special. The old material found a new life; a new “vibe”. A new way to express the songs 30 years later…
So, upon returning Mark and myself had another chat and I mentioned to him that “this should be our next album” … new presentations and arrangements of songs for our past albums. We agreed that Human Drama’s catalog is filled with acoustic guitar, so we should try to avoid that even though most of our songs have been written around the acoustic guitar. We felt this would sound too “normal” and possible a bit lazy, which we (as a band) never have been. So, we made the decision to keep the instrumentation to vocal, piano, flute, violin, muted bass and add only a classical nylon string guitar that would play off of the other instruments. Also, we agreed to no double tracking or layering of tracks, with the goal being the album should sound like 6 persons playing together in a room, playing off of each other. That was the plan…and we stuck to it. This is as simple and pure of an album that we have ever made.
The highlights of the album for me are the beautiful piano arrangements by Mark Balderas. This is the foundation of the album. We took directly from the orchestration of a Human Drama track from 1995 called The Waiting Hour (once again), a re-make of a song originally on our first RCA release “Feel”. We had couple of ideas of songs to start with from our Sala Neza concert set, but we intentionally stayed away from piano based tracks from prior albums.
So, we went to work choosing the songs and slowly getting the piano arrangements completed and recorded. We took our time choosing ten songs that we felt would translate well in this new musical configuration.
Over the course of a year and a half we recorded TEN SMALL FRACTURES. Mark and I were joined by; Lynn Bertles and Gerardo Pozos on violin, Paul Pate and Claudia Gonzalez on flute, Steve Fuxan on muted bass, and Tim Grove, Steve Caton and Richard Lo Guercio on nylon string guitar.
Regarding the title of the album. This came from many questions by interviewers over the years about the personal issues I discuss in my lyrics, and the honesty of my approach. “Is it difficult to expose yourself as you do? Are the songs painful to relive? My answer to this in one interview was “No, not at all. I feel the story, then write the story, record the story, and then let them go. The songs may be painful in the moment, but they are not like broken bones that stay broken. They are more like small fractures…”
Johnny Indovina 2023
Includes unlimited streaming of TEN SMALL FRACTURES
via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
...more
In 2019 we were invited to do a concert for the National University of Mexico UNAM. The offer was to perform an acoustic concert at Sala Nezahualcóyotl, a very famous theater on the campus of the university. When thinking about how best to do the presentation, myself and Mark Balderas discussed possible doing a Piano and acoustic guitar presentation, which we had done a few times over the years. But during those conversations we felt like we could really expand the presentation and make it more special if we incorporated strings and flute, and did strategic new arrangements of all the material. So, we brought in with our violinist Gerardo Pozos and our flautist Claudia Gonzalez and conferred with them about creating a new, exciting presentation of our songs.
The concert was one of our favorite concerts as Human Drama, and with all the work and preparation rearranging the songs for Piano, Violin and Flute, the concert felt very different and special. The old material found a new life; a new “vibe”. A new way to express the songs 30 years later…
So, upon returning Mark and myself had another chat and I mentioned to him that “this should be our next album” … new presentations and arrangements of songs for our past albums. We agreed that Human Drama’s catalog is filled with acoustic guitar, so we should try to avoid that even though most of our songs have been written around the acoustic guitar. We felt this would sound too “normal” and possible a bit lazy, which we (as a band) never have been. So, we made the decision to keep the instrumentation to vocal, piano, flute, violin, muted bass and add only a classical nylon string guitar that would play off of the other instruments. Also, we agreed to no double tracking or layering of tracks, with the goal being the album should sound like 6 persons playing together in a room, playing off of each other. That was the plan…and we stuck to it. This is as simple and pure of an album that we have ever made.
The highlights of the album for me are the beautiful piano arrangements by Mark Balderas. This is the foundation of the album. We took directly from the orchestration of a Human Drama track from 1995 called The Waiting Hour (once again), a re-make of a song originally on our first RCA release “Feel”. We had couple of ideas of songs to start with from our Sala Neza concert set, but we intentionally stayed away from piano based tracks from prior albums.
So, we went to work choosing the songs and slowly getting the piano arrangements completed and recorded. We took our time choosing ten songs that we felt would translate well in this new musical configuration.
Over the course of a year and a half we recorded TEN SMALL FRACTURES. Mark and I were joined by; Lynn Bertles and Gerardo Pozos on violin, Paul Pate and Claudia Gonzalez on flute, Steve Fuxan on muted bass, and Tim Grove, Steve Caton and Richard Lo Guercio on nylon string guitar.
Regarding the title of the album. This came from many questions by interviewers over the years about the personal issues I discuss in my lyrics, and the honesty of my approach. “Is it difficult to expose yourself as you do? Are the songs painful to relive? My answer to this in one interview was “No, not at all. I feel the story, then write the story, record the story, and then let them go. The songs may be painful in the moment, but they are not like broken bones that stay broken. They are more like small fractures…”
Johnny Indovina 2023
credits
released July 28, 2023
Produced by Johnny Indovina
Arranged for piano by Mark Balderas
Johnny Indovina: Vocal, nylon string guitar, muted bass, string arrangements
Mark Balderas: Piano
Lyn Bertles: Violin and viola
Gerardo Pozos: Violin
Paul Pate: Flute
Claudia Gonzalez: Flute
Richard Lo Guercio: Nylon string guitar on "My Skin" and "Blue"
Timothy Grove: Nylon string guitar on " The Ways and the Wounds"
Steve Caton: Nylon string guitar on " Death of an Angel"
Steve Fuxan: Muted bass on "Death of an Angel"
Since their formation in the early 80s,
singer/songwriter/guitarist Johnny Indovina has guided Human Drama through over a dozen critically acclaimed albums and countless spectacular live performances, creating a beautifully intense collection of work, while gathering the band a deeply devoted following in America, and most notably Mexico....more
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