The "In a Field of Poppies" project was originally conceived and ultimately
produced by Richard Harden. Richard is an artist from Connecticut who was commissioned
by Kosova to put together an instillation of self-reflection for the Balkan countries.
The instillation is 180' wide by 8' tall and is set up in a circle. Richard saw Jacobstone
perform at Cornerstone Festival in Bushnell, IL in July 2001 and soon after asked
Jacobstone to be involved in making a soundtrack for the instillation.
That
winter, the soundtrack project began. Richard flew out to frosty Wisconsin and met
with Jacobstone to go over what he was doing with the instillation, why he is doing
it and show them some of what happened in the Balkans in the 1990's via slides. It
was an incredible and very heavy weekend. Richard left the band with a CD of sounds
that he had collected while traveling the Balkans. The CD had clips of tanks, helicopters,
refugees getting hauled over borders in garbage trucks, mothers talking about children
they lost, and on and on.
The next weekend Jacobstone got together in the
studio and began to put into music what they felt from hearing and seeing all that
Richard had brought them. With nothing at all planned, the music was truly inspired
by what each musician was feeling. Tony Olla was able to sample in many of the audio
clips that Richard had left the band and they were used live while recording. When
the weekend was over, they had four CD's worth of material. It was now Richard's
and engineer/producer Matt Spransy's turn to cut it down to one CD of material.
The
final project includes more audio samples that Richard brought/found including some
poetry, Albanian sisters singing, an interviews with a General from the war, and
more. This is definitely not easy listening, more like heavy listening. This is a
truly touching piece of music. Jacobstone has put onto CD some very intimate music,
something you will not want to miss.