Kites Are Fun – THE FREE DESIGN***

Kites Are Fun/Make The Madness Stop/When Love Is Young/The Proper Ornaments/My Brother Woody/59th Bridge Street Song/Don’t Turn Away/Umbrellas/Michelle/Never Tell The World/A Man & A Woman/Stay Another Season

Kites Are Fun was the debut album from the New York sunshine pop group The Free Design. Their image was considered a bit too straight for the emerging hippie generation.

“An extremely pleasant listen, sugar-sweet harmonies and very well done counterpoints in vocal arrangements. But it lacks the personality or serious creative ambition to tie everything together to a masterwork. And the lack of strong songs is disappointing.”

“Kites Are Fun works within a limited style and range. The harmonies are all very similar and there's not much dynamic range to the music. This is as much a critique of the genre as the group. It doesn't age as well as some material from this period, but that's part of the charm.”

“Sunshine pop at its most sunshiny is the recipe of The Free Design. Picture the band sitting on a sunny patch of grass besides a bubbling brook, having a merry picnic fuelled by marmalade sandwiches and juices of various flavours. So it's very twee and precious while at the same time lovely and naive.”

“There's a very good reason that The Free Design never hit the big time. They sound just like every other hippie harmony band from the mid and late 60s, but without the songwriting ability of their more successful colleagues.”

“Picture a commercial from 1967 - the men wearing turtleneck sweaters, the women with long blonde hair. Perhaps the ad is set in a ski lodge. The sun is shining bright, the music sweet and pure. Around the fire, their eyes glow as they smile with perfect teeth. This is a memory that is on the verge of disappearing. The Free Design open the gates into this long-ago time, now as dead to us as ancient Rome.”

“The gorgeous harmonies, the intricate arrangements, the irresistibly catchy songs, this is The Free Design. From the joyful summer afternoon of the title track, to the lush, soaring chorale of Stay Another Season this is pop music at its best. If you're up for ultra sweet vocals, bouncy flutes and lyrics it will be hard to resist this.”