Brother Sun Sister Moon was a collaboration between Paul Robb and Barbara Cohen. Paul was one of the founding members of Information Society- which apparently is reunited. Paul is a noted composer and has contributed instrumental works to commercials and movies. Barbara Cohen was part of her own band Little Lizard and today is a solo performer with her last full album California released in 2003. Paul and Barbara were living in Minneapolis pursuing their projects when Paul approached Barbara to sing in a Trip Hop project. The resulting album The Great Game was released in 1997 at the end of February to local fanfare on Robb’s label Hakatak, which was being carried by TwinTone/TRG. This was during the time when Trip Hop was in its heyday– Portishead, DJ Shadow, Morcheeba, and Sneaker Pimps were all topping alternative radio. At the time Minneapolis alternative station REV-105 was pushing tracks from the album which was getting very favorable reviews. My wife and I saw the record release party at the Fine Line on March 8th. It was a great show– Cohen front and center with a backup female vocalist, Robb on laptop, a guest bass player and another guy on turntables.
The local buzz about the group drew the attention of Virgin Records who quickly signed them resulting in Robb and Cohen to relocate to California to work on the follow up Luminous. While the release– under the group’s new name Luminous– was recorded and features a collaboration with Orbital, it was never released by Virgin and the group was dropped. The album finally was released in 2002 on Bleep Records and is now out-of-print.
On June 1, 2007 Robb is re-releasing the debut Brother Sun Sister Moon on his Hakatak imprint as a download-only release via iTunes and Rhapsody. Robb has been releasing his Industrial works as Think Tank as well. This is really good news as this album has been a favorite of my wife and mine and is in regular rotation on the house mp3 server. If you are a fan of 90’s Trip Hop acts like Portishead this album is for you. Cohen’s soulful vocals are complimented nicely by the samples and drum and bass of Paul Robb. I hope that Robb will release the Way Down Deep EP as well as it includes remixes of “Nicosia” and “Laudanum” which was not on the album, and the “hidden” instrumental track “Africa 2005” from the album.
Download “Cairo” (mp3)
from “The Great Game”
by Brother Sun Sister Moon
Hakatak International
Buy at iTunes Music Store
Well no comments so many years since release can it be???…..:(:(:(…..so….MJ Brit…Hurley..Celine..Underwood..!??$#!##@??…Such a sad reflection on the state of artistic talent within the U.S. at this late date …mmmm..a new year of 2008..fuckin a ..a full 11 years have passed…Barb is it possible???…Seems music has run in “thirties” this past century..Big Band Era…then 1960’s..followed by 1990’s…If you missed out..ie too busy raising your children..too young to have found out about it…too old to even care??..not within earshot of MPLS????…well if u haven’t heard BSSM or Portishead take a listen to see what u have missed..Wow
Hi! My first comment for ’08!
I couldn’t agree more with your comments, guga. It seems like ’08 is going to spark a bit of a resurgence in TripHop with Portishead reuniting– maybe people will start digging back to some of the other bands in this genre.
I was at a house party last night to ring in the New Year, and some of the crowd there were in their early-to-mid forties and were discussing ’80’s rock, but the subject turned to Minneapolis groups when they found out that I lived there for a while, and my wife is from there. I mentioned that InfoSoc was back together and due to play some shows. I was also telling them about Brother Sun Sister Moon.
If you don’t have Barb’s California album, you should get it! It isn’t Trip-Hop, but it is one of the favorites around my house. My 21-year-old daughter loves it and when we got to see Barb play here in Cedar Rapids a couple of years ago it really sparked an interest with her to sing. You can listen to tracks at CDBaby.com and purchase it.
Thanks for stopping by!
Mike