The Langley Schools Music Project

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All Music Guide:

The Langley Schools Music Project is not so much a group as the name that served as an umbrella for a couple of super-obscure, privately pressed LPs by Canadian elementary school students in the mid-'70s. The recordings were supervised and arranged by Hans Fenger, a Vancouver musician who had taken a post teaching music in elementary schools in the rural area of Langley, British Columbia. Fenger took a then-radical (and still-radical) approach to music instruction that emphasized participation and pop songs the kids liked. Even more radically, he recorded his students on a couple of albums, pressed in extremely small quantities for performers, parents, classmates, and faculty (only 300 were pressed of the first LP). Recorded on two-track in a gym, these feature approximately 50-strong groups of elementary school children singing, usually together (there are occasional solo spotlights), pop/rock songs of the '60s and '70s like "Good Vibrations," "Band on the Run," and "Desperado." They were accompanied by minimal instrumentation, including cymbals, xylophones, metallophones, one open-tuned string of an electric bass, and Fenger's own acoustic rhythm guitar and piano.

It was all made to order for eventual rediscovery by "incredibly strange music" fans, of course. Irwin Chusid, author of Songs in the Key of Z, was the prime force behind its 2001 CD reissue on Bar/None. While the record has the amateurish guilelessness one would expect given the circumstances, it does boast some truly odd arrangements, with cavernous reverb, sloppy cymbal crashes, and spooky dabs of xylophone. The bizarre reading of "Space Oddity," with its apocalyptic slides and over-tremoloed guitar, is a highlight. In the early 21st century, its cult following had attracted listeners that the 150 or so school children who participated in these recordings could have scarcely imagined, with John Zorn, David Bowie, Richard Carpenter, and Penn Jillette all praising the record.

Wikipedia:

The Langley Schools Music Project is a collection of recordings of children's choruses singing pop hits by the likes of The Beach Boys, David Bowie, and Paul McCartney. Originally recorded in 1976–77, they were rereleased in 2001 and became a cult hit and a notably successful example of outsider music.

History

The project was undertaken in 1976–77 by Canadian music teacher Hans Fenger with students from Langley School District in British Columbia. Recordings were made in a school gym in Langley, in Metro Vancouver. Two LPs were released, Lochiel, Glenwood, and South Carvolth Schools in 1976 and Hans Fenger/Wix-Brown Elementary School in 1977. Fenger later said:

I knew virtually nothing about conventional music education, and didn't know how to teach singing. Above all, I knew nothing of what children's music was supposed to be. But the kids had a grasp of what they liked: emotion, drama, and making music as a group. Whether the results were good, bad, in tune or out was no big deal -- they had élan. This was not the way music was traditionally taught. But then I never liked conventional 'children's music,' which is condescending and ignores the reality of children's lives, which can be dark and scary. These children hated 'cute.' They cherished songs that evoked loneliness and sadness

The recordings were little known until Brian Linds, a Victoria record collector, found the first record in a thrift store in 2000. He sent it to Irwin Chusid, a proponent of outsider music. After ten labels had rejected them, Bar/None Records released Innocence & Despair, a single-CD compilation of the two LPs.

Response

Innocence & Despair quickly created an international buzz, making many end-of-the-year best album lists in 2001.

Fred Schneider called the project "a haunting, evocative wall-of-sound experience that is affecting in an incredibly visceral way". Neil Gaiman commented, "I wish every school taught music like this. I wish every piece of music recorded in a school gymnasium were this haunting... and then I suspect that, if I listened to them right, maybe they would be."

Richard Carpenter described the vocals on "Calling Occupants" as "charming". David Bowie said the version of "Space Oddity" was "a piece of art that I couldn't have conceived of", describing the vocals as "earnest if lugubrious" and the backing arrangement as "astounding".

Influence

VH-1 coordinated a reunion of Fenger and dozens of his former students in 2002, and produced a documentary about the project. Richard Linklater's 2003 hit film School of Rock was inspired by the Langley CD. When Spike Jonze approached Karen O to write the soundtrack to Where The Wild Things Are, he gave Innocence and Despair as an example of the desired "simple melodies that were emotionally complex—something that both kids and adults would appreciate".

In 2010, the Langley School recording of "Good Vibrations" was licensed for the soundtrack of the film Catfish. It can also be heard in the film's trailer.