Review Summary: A largely forgotten album; worth a look
Indio was a project by Canadian singer-songwriter Gordon Peterson. Indio released one album, 1989's Big Harvest, featuring several high-profile artists including Bill Dillon and David Rhodes on guitars, Larry Klein on bass and Brenda Russell and Joni Mitchell singing background vocals. Other collaborators included Indian violinist L. Subramaniam.
Though the single "Hard Sun" got a fair amount of airplay in Canada and the U.S. Big Harvest did not sell well, and Peterson was dropped from his label and left the business. He remains a reclusive figure, and his exact wherabouts are currently not known. Big Harvest became a collectors item, with used copies commanding up to $400 on eBay.
In 2007, Pearl Jam's Eddie Vedder covered the single "Hard Sun" for the Sean Penn movie Into the Wild. This led to a resurgence in Indio's popularity, and on January 27, 2009 Big Harvest was reissued by Pacemaker Entertainment.
Indio is an interesting band. Gordon Peterson was a musical outsider, who recorded an album that is overlooked by most of the world, while cultivating a small though dedicated fan base. He subsequently turned into a recluse, and was presumed dead, until he resurfaced at a fansite, treating fans with new material and a short email interview.
Big Harvest, however, is an interesting album in its own right. The music has a primarily acoustic base, accompanied by the occasional distorted guitar, pianos and organs, drums, a strong backing bass, violins and a sitar. The album opens with Grinding Wheel, a song that is representative of the entire album due to the vast repertoire of instruments used. The song Hard Sun was popularised by Eddie Vedder in 2007, and is probably the strongest cut on the album. Save For The Memory and Life Lies Down, the closing song, are another two of the stronger cuts on this album.
The lyrical content is extremely environmental in nature, with most of the songs dealing with mankind's destruction of the Earth.
Overall, the album contains a few great songs, though most of the rest fluctuate between good and average.
Best Cuts - Hard Sun, Grinding Wheel, Save For The Memory, Life Lies Down
