''Funnel Cloud'' is the fourth album by

folk rock Folk rock is a hybrid music genre that combines the elements of folk and rock music, which arose in the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom in the mid-1960s. In the U.S., folk rock emerged from the folk music revival. Performers suc ...

band Hem. It was released on Nettwerk on September 5, 2006. Considered the band's most ambitious work to date, they recorded the album accompanied by a 21-piece orchestra, as well as James Iha of the

Smashing Pumpkins Smash may refer to: People * Smash (wrestler) (born 1959), professional wrestler * Moondog Rex, another professional wrestler who briefly wrestled as the original Smash, before being replaced by the above. * DJ Smash, DJ and music producer Art, ...

. The concept was conceived on the day of lead singer Sally Ellyson's

Virginia Virginia, officially the Commonwealth of Virginia, is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Southeastern regions of the United States, between the Atlantic Coast and the Appalachian Mountains. The geography and climate of the Commonwealth ar ...

wedding, during which the party had to evacuate to storm cellars due to a number of tornadoes that touched down in the area.Hem Transcends Adversity On 'Funnel Cloud' , Billboard
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Track listing

All songs written by Dan Messé, except where noted. # We'll Meet Along The Way (Messé, Steve Curtis) - 2:04 # He Came To Meet Me (Curtis) - 4:23 # Not California (Messé, Gary Maurer) - 4:13 # Funnel Cloud - 3:16 # Too Late To Turn Back Now (Messé, Maurer) - 3:06 # The Pills Stopped Working (Messé, Maurer) - 4:47 # Hotel Fire (Messé, Maurer) - 3:51 # Great Houses Of New York - 3:11 # Curtains - 3:03 # Old Adam - 2:39 # The Burnt-Over District - 2:33 # Reservoir (Curtis) - 3:19 # I'll Dream Of You Tonight (Curtis) - 3:58 # Almost Home - 2:02

Personnel

*Sally Ellyson -

vocals Singing is the act of creating musical sounds with the voice. A person who sings is called a singer, artist or vocalist (in jazz and/or popular music). Singers perform music (arias, recitatives, songs, etc.) that can be sung with or without ...

*Dan Messé -

piano The piano is a stringed keyboard instrument in which the strings are struck by wooden hammers that are coated with a softer material (modern hammers are covered with dense wool felt; some early pianos used leather). It is played using a keyboa ...

accordion Accordions (from 19th-century German ''Akkordeon'', from ''Akkord''—"musical chord, concord of sounds") are a family of box-shaped musical instruments of the bellows-driven free-reed aerophone type (producing sound as air flows past a reed ...

glockenspiel The glockenspiel ( or , : bells and : set) or bells is a percussion instrument consisting of pitched aluminum or steel bars arranged in a keyboard layout. This makes the glockenspiel a type of metallophone, similar to the vibraphone. The glo ...

*Gary Maurer -

guitar The guitar is a fretted musical instrument that typically has six strings. It is usually held flat against the player's body and played by strumming or plucking the strings with the dominant hand, while simultaneously pressing selected stri ...

mandolin A mandolin ( it, mandolino ; literally "small mandola") is a stringed musical instrument in the lute family and is generally plucked with a pick. It most commonly has four courses of doubled strings tuned in unison, thus giving a total of 8 ...

*Steve Curtis - guitar, mandolin,

banjo The banjo is a stringed instrument with a thin membrane stretched over a frame or cavity to form a resonator. The membrane is typically circular, and usually made of plastic, or occasionally animal skin. Early forms of the instrument were fashi ...

, back-up vocals *George Rush -

bass guitar The bass guitar, electric bass or simply bass (), is the lowest-pitched member of the string family. It is a plucked string instrument similar in appearance and construction to an electric or an acoustic guitar, but with a longer neck and ...

*Mark Brotter -

drums A drum kit (also called a drum set, trap set, or simply drums) is a collection of drums, cymbals, and other Percussion instrument, auxiliary percussion instruments set up to be played by one person. The player (drummer) typically holds a pair o ...

*Bob Hoffnar -

pedal steel guitar The pedal steel guitar is a Console steel guitar, console-type of steel guitar with pedals and knee levers that change the pitch of certain strings to enable playing more varied and complex music than any previous steel guitar design. Like all s ...

*Heather Zimmerman -

violin The violin, sometimes known as a ''fiddle'', is a wooden chordophone (string instrument) in the violin family. Most violins have a hollow wooden body. It is the smallest and thus highest-pitched instrument (soprano) in the family in regular ...

*Greg Pliska - orchestral arrangements

References

2006 albums Hem (band) albums Nettwerk Records albums {{2000s-folk-rock-album-stub