Earth Rot

The fact that David Axelrod’s first two albums were inspired by William Blake’s Songs Of Innocence and Songs Of Experience suggested that the composer wasn’t short on big ideas. Nevertheless, even the most turned-on listeners in 1970 might have been taken aback by the choral readings from the book of Isaiah that opened Earth Rot. Possibly the most bizarre album of Axelrod’s career, the record was a meditation on impending ecological disaster divided into two four-part suites: ‘The Warnings’ and ‘The Signs.’ Whatever your tolerance for new age hippie BS, the music — recorded with a nine-piece choir and orchestra — is sublime and, as temperatures currently soar across the globe, Axelrod’s message was fairly on point.