Why This Album Is Harder To Find Than You Think
Cocktail Hour Under The Tree Of Forgetfulness is the 1985 album by Daniel Amos. It sits between two of their more well-known records, Missing: Interpreted and Phantoms, and honestly, that placement is exactly why it's been ignored for decades. The album was originally released on Caroline Records, which at the time was a fairly small independent label based in California. Caroline went through enough business upheaval in the late eighties that tracking down clean copies of the original pressing is basically a treasure hunt now. I spent about three hours last winter trying to piece together a complete copy of the first pressing. The US version had a different catalog number than the UK pressing, and the Australian edition actually has slightly different track sequencing. You think you've found a solid source, then you check the runout groove and realize you're looking at the 1991 reissue instead, which has a noticeably flatter mastering job. This is the kind of detail that will eat your weekend alive if you're collecting originals.
Where To Actually Get Cocktail Hour Under The Tree Of Forgetfulness
The most straightforward way to get this album today is to download it from Bandcamp or to pick up a CD through the Carried to Zion webstore, which is Daniel Amos's official distribution arm. They have the remastered version that came out in 2007, and honestly, it's the one most people should start with. The original 1985 pressing is still available through third-party sellers on Discogs, but the price has climbed. A clean first pressing in decent condition will run you somewhere between seventy and one hundred twenty dollars depending on whether the inner sleeve is intact. If you're looking for the digital route, it's available on most major streaming platforms. The audio quality isn't great on Spotify, but Apple Music and Tidal have the remastered version at least. I stopped buying physical media for this one after my first Discogs order arrived with a ring-worn surface that made the quiet passages on "Pioneer" unlistenable. The remaster fixed most of that. There's a common misconception that this album is some kind of spiritual successor to Missing: Interpreted. It isn't really. The band was coming off a contract dispute with Myrrh Records and was operating with significantly less budget and creative freedom during the recording sessions. What you hear on Cocktail Hour Under The Tree Of Forgetfulness is Daniel Amos working within tighter constraints, not expanding outward. The arrangements are stripped down. The synths are thinner. Terry Scott Taylor was dealing with a lot of personal friction at the time, and it shows in the vocal delivery, which is more clipped and less exploratory than on his previous work.
The track "The Only Thing That Works" is the one that gets people into this album, and it's easy to see why. It's the closest thing to a radio single they made during the Caroline period. The rest of the record is considerably more dense, and that's where most listeners either commit or move on. "I'll Be Your Hero" has about five minutes of instrumental passage that goes nowhere productive, which is intentional on the band's part but still makes for a slog on first listen. I had a friend listen to the full album once and said it felt like he'd been stuck in a church basement for forty-five minutes. That's fair, but also reductive. The 2007 remaster is not a vast improvement over the original. It loudness-warred the living daylights out of the dynamic range, and if you've got a good pair of headphones, the original CD actually sounds more open and honest. The bass guitar is louder on the remaster, which masks some of the interplay between the bass and the synth lines, particularly on "A Song for the Dead." I keep the original pressings in my collection specifically because the mix sits better for critical listening. If you only have access to the streaming version, just be aware that it's been compressed more than it needs to be. One thing that comes up repeatedly in forums about this album is the confusion around the personnel. The core Daniel Amos lineup recorded this, but several session musicians are credited and it's not always clear who played what. The liner notes from the original pressing are sparse to the point of being almost misleading. I tracked down a few credits through interviews Taylor gave in the late eighties, and it turns out that Steve Hindalong handled most of the drum programming while the live drums were largely minimal or absent. That distinction matters if you're trying to understand the drum sound on tracks like "The Only Thing That Works," where the kit sounds like it was triggered through a drum machine.
Get the Full Details
The album as a whole is probably best understood as a bridge record. It connects the synth-heavy early eighties Daniel Amos output with the slightly more guitar-driven direction they took afterward, but it doesn't fully arrive at either destination. It exists in that middle ground, which is both its greatest flaw and its greatest charm. If you're approaching this album expecting the same energy as Missing: Interpreted, you'll be disappointed. If you approach it as a document of a band figuring out what to do next under less than ideal circumstances, it rewards repeated listening in a way that most of their other Caroline-era releases don't quite manage.
