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Album Review: "Wow! What a pleasant surprise to find a ‘new’ side of someone’s music I thought I knew. Flight Plans is wonderful – Max Highstein should be justly proud. Instantly enticing, from the bouncy ‘Living In A Box’ through to the silly ‘Spam Song’. Good doses of humor and personal depth – all in a melodic and charming package... As for sound, it is extremely well recorded." -- Frosty Horton, Mediameld More reviews...
ALBUM DESCRIPTION Flight Plans: Songs To Help Find Your Wings, is the first vocal album from Max Highstein. His singing voice is warm, soulfull and intimate -- a perfect match for his insightful, catchy lyrics. These are songs that make you feel good about yourself, and give you a bit of a boost for your next step on life's path. The instrumentation is beautifully interwoven with the melodies, much like the best of Max's instrumental material. Piano, cello, soprano sax, accordion, fretless bass, acoustic guitars, organ, strings, percussion and background vocals all gracefully harmonize to help tell the story. Every song is full of life, humor and insight.
Living In A Box:*cello, guitar, accordion. A humorous look at dealing with the challenges we all face, and remembering to look up for inspiration.
When You're Older: *Spanish guitar, accordion. A tender story of a father-son relationship, and what it means to grow up with a parent's love and support.
Anniversary Dance:*Spanish guitar, sax, marimba, accordion, choir. With A joyous instrumental, with an exhuberant choral refrain -- Light Up My Heart... Light Up Your Life!
Nature: *cello, soprano sax, accordion. A sweet and jazzy point of view from the ground up, with some lovely music interplay between soprano sax, cello, accordion and piano.
Love Pour Down: *cello, acoustic guitar, Hammond organ. A deep spiritual love song, with rich piano and cello work.
Peel Me Off The Ceiling: *guitar, Hammond organ. An exhuberant declaration of joy at being in the presence of Love.
Koh-E-Nor (Mountain Of Light): *live string section, choir, Spanish guitar, Hammond organ A story of being on the spritual path in ballad form, with a rousing gospel-influenced ending. Koh-E-Nor is the name of a famous diamond, and translates from the Persion to "Mountain Of Light"
The Duck: *cello, organ. Something jazzy and fun, with exceptional cello playing by Ed Willett.
Flight Plans: *cello, acoustic guitar, Hammond organ. A bittersweet song about carrying forward the things we inherit from our parents, for better or worse, and ultimately lifting higher as a result. With rich piano, cello, and organ arrangments.
To Ride A Red Horse: *Spanish guitar, accordion, vocal feature, electric piano. An instrumental piece with piano, Spanish guitar, accordion, percussion, and backround voices.
Roll Me To Sleep: *cello, soprano sax. A sweet lullabye in waltz time, with piano, soprano sax, cello, background vocals, fretless bass and persussion.
I Can Hear Your Love: *organ, flute, tenor sax. Spiritual groove piece with lots of mystery and soulful tenor sax. It's like a haunting, distant echo of the #5 song, Love Pour Down.
Sheep Of Love (The Spam Song): *spoken word, horn section. Some of the most ridiculous spam email titles of the last few years were woven together into an unlikely story of love. With the beautiful and mysterious Nataliya, the Russian would-be bride, and the Sheep Of Love Singers. Very, very silly fun!
MUSICIAN CREDITS
All music and lyrics by Max Highstein
Max Highstein - Vocals, pianos, fretless electric bass, miscellaneous keyboards and hand percussion, arranging, recording, mixing and production
Ed Willett - Cello; string arranging and conducting on Koh-E-Nor; acoustic guitar on Koh-E-Nor
Mark Clarke - Drums, congas, bongos, udu, more cowbell on Sheep Of Love
Daniel Ward - Electric guitar, acoustic steel string and Spanish guitars
Bob Miner - Soprano sax on Nature and Roll Me To Sleep; tenor sax on I Can Hear Your Love
Susan Clark - Background vocals
Sara K - Background vocals
Ursula Drabik - Background - Background vocals on Koh-E-Nor; Natalia talk-making on Sheep of Love
Album Review: "Max Highstein is an ambient composer, teacher, and intuitive healer, appreciated for his vast contribution to New Age music. But up until Flight Plans we've never heard him sing (unless you've been lucky enough to see him in concert), and now Highstein fans can step back in awe. Flight Plans sounds like a step back in time for Highstein's sweet, soft, but mature and assured voice has the same touching sense of open-hearted spirit and aural ambition that was big in the days of 1970s FM radio via artists like James Taylor, Jim Croce, Cat Stevens, and Dan Fogelberg. A loose song cycle about the longing to fly and the weights that sometimes hold us down, Flight Plans is at once deeply personal and universal: one man's spiritual longing and triumphs shared through music.
Songs like the sparkling "Anniversary Dance" have a comforting sing-along feeling that recalls music from South Africa. There's even a marimba solo to go with the cheerful chorus, which sings, "Light up / Your heart / Light up / Your life," as well as Spanish guitars, piano, accordion, and a full choir. "Nature" finds Highstein singing chirpy and cheerful about "stones and bits between the bricks / The Patches and the rocks," as he strolls through nature with the help of a merry accordion and barrelhouse piano, underscored by a moody cello and highlighted by a bright-eyed soprano sax.
Songs are varied in tempo if sharing the same smooth, adult folk-rock style, as in the jubilant high-energy of "Peel Me Off the Ceiling," but Highstein's expertise is clearly in the meditative ballads, where his lyrical insight and gentle songcraft come to the fore. On the deeply emotional, piano-driven confessions of "Roll Me to Sleep," the music flows with inspired piano, cello, fretless bass, and a profound sense of ennui right at home on a 1970s mellow-rock album. We've lost a lot of heart and feeling in our music since those days, a time when men were able to open up their hearts and souls in their music and still be resonantly masculine. When Highstein sings, "Release me from all that is wrong in this world / Allow me to take to the air," you realize he’s done just that for you; together you're off in the clouds, so don't look down." -- DailyOm.com
