Celeste Lear: ROTATE

It's not often that my interest in music overlaps with one of my other legion of interests (I am conversant in everything, and expert in nothing). It must be equally rare for an artist to be able to cite a direct family connection to the development of technologies that literally changed the world; yet one such artist recently sent me her new CD. The woman in question is Celeste Lear, and the heritage in question comes from her grandfather, William (Bill) Lear.

A bit of background: Bill Lear is best known for developing the Lear Jet, the first purpose-built business jet in the world. Those fancy Gulfstream and Falcon bizjets, and even the ubiquitous "regional jets" favored by airlines, all owe their existence to the pioneering Lear Jet. The Lear Jet line is still produced today by Bombardier Aerospace (above: the Learjet 45XR).

That's an incredibly cool connection for an aviation geek like me, but perhaps even more intriguing are Bill Lear's contributions to the field of mass communications: More recently with the invention of the 8-track tape (my mom had one in her '75 VW Super Beetle), and most importantly with the invention of a little thing called the car radio. True story: Lear and his partner designed the thing, and then sold their patents to a company that would later call itself Motorola.

Now, if I were Celeste Lear, I wouldn't be able to stop myself from telling everyone, "Yeah, my granddad helped change mass communications, and with it, world culture." Fortunately, Celeste Lear isn't like me -- she has talent. Thus, she's not limited to riding her progenitor's coattails (impressive though they are); instead, she has chosen to express herself through music. And what's really interesting, to me at least, is the genre she has chosen: Electronica.

I've lamented before about how there do not seem to be enough woman producers/performers/DJ's in the Electronica scene (although there are plenty of fantastic female vocalists working in the genre). Therefore it was a pleasant surprise to receive Celeste Lear's album The Echo Inside from out of the wild blue. Overall, I'd categorize the album as Downtempo/Chillout. In other words, this isn't the type of Electronica to which you'd drop E and pogo on a massive dancefloor along with 1000 sweaty Europeans (although I doubt Celeste Lear would mind if you did that).

The song structure suggests that Ms Lear composes on traditional instruments and later arranges the songs for synths and sequencers. One thing I can say for sure is that she is a skilled guitarist. The opening track "The Riddle" features an unexpected, Duane Eddy-like guitar part; the first clue that Celeste Lear may not hew to all the conventions of Electronica. Later tracks like "Live Passionately" are reminiscent of Supreme Beings of Leisure, which may not be a complete coincidence, since Ms Lear has worked with SBL producer David Hauser. On the other hand, "The Highway and the Stars" is a Funk-influenced track that comes across like a trippy, spacey Luscious Jackson song.

Indeed, there is a much deeper retro influence on The Echo Inside than on many Chillout albums. But where artists like Saint Etienne and Portishead successfully incorporated retro British sounds into their songs, Celeste Lear's influences seem largely domestic. And let's face it, most of those groups used studio musicians or samples for their cool guitar licks, whereas Celeste Lear gets to write and perform all the cool guitar licks she wants.

With 15 tracks, almost all of them 4-5 minutes long, The Echo Inside is a big, deep album. If you're even a little bit into Chillout, Downtempo or similar genres, then you'll probably find much to your liking on this album. In fact, the album is quite accessible, and could easily cross-over into AAA and similar playlists.

Celeste Lear is something of a Renaissance woman: Songwriter, musician, vocalist, producer -- and sculptress of welded steel dragons (really...check out her website). And although she had a tough act to follow, it is clear to see that Celeste Lear is carrying-on her family's tradition of talent.