Blueprint for a Sunrise

1	I Want You to Remember Me "A" 1:23
2	I Want You to Remember Me "B" 4:08
3	Is This What We Do 2:58
4	Wouldnit "Swing" 2:38
5	Soul Got Out of the Box 2:14
6	Rising II 12:52
7	It's Time for Action! 4:05
8	I'm Not Getting Enough 3:26
9	Mulberry 8:34
10	I Remember Everything 2:40
11	Are You Looking for Me? 2:03

Barnes & Noble

Each of Yoko Ono's individual undertakings can be seen as part of a larger, unified project, from her earliest artistic works to her envelope-pushing sonic experiments. Sometimes she gives clues as to the links -- this album, for instance, uses the same title as the CD that accompanied the Y E S Yoko Ono art book, from which it borrows a couple of tracks -- but more often, Ono leaves listeners to explore on their own, which is far more fun. Like her best work, Blueprint for a Sunrise has an enigmatically feline quality -- feral and snarling one moment, delicate and purring the next. Ono has always been best known for material that falls into the former category, songs that let her exorcise the demons within via her one-of-a-kind voice. Blueprint for a Sunrise starts off on that footing, with the white-knuckled, two-part "I Want You to Remember Me," which chronicles an abusive, obsessive relationship in violent, unflinching detail, replete with Ono's anguished "kill, kill, kill" interjections. With those ominous images still hanging heavy in the air, she alters course radically, wrapping the pensive "Is This What We Do" in a lovely, simple cloak of Spanish guitar. Such shifts are common on the disc, which can make for spatial dislocation, particularly when Ono really lets her art flag fly, as on "Mulberry," a live improvisation recorded with the backing of son Sean Lennon and his band IMA. But while the medium is irregular, the overriding message of Blueprint for a Sunrise remains fixed: Ono projects an unbridled humanism, with a concentration on feminist discourse. The former is most evident in "Rising II" (much of which is sung in Japanese) and the latter in "Are You Looking for Me" and "Wouldn't-it-swing." David Sprague

All Music Guide

Blueprint for Sunrise is something of a companion piece (almost 30 years down the road) to 1973's Feeling the Space, both being Ono's ruminations on the position and persistence of women in the world. There's still some anger present, but this time it's tempered with acceptance, but not resignation. Although she's made some concessions toward the pop world, Yoko is still firmly entrenched in the avant-garde fringes of rock. Most songs feature some of Yoko's trademark vocalizing, and a couple seem to be live recordings with mostly improvised accompaniment. The best moments of the album, however, come when the outside tendencies are reigned in, and something more resembling conventional songs come forward. The insistent funk groove with blasts of guitar noise on "It's Time for Action!" and Marley-flavored reggae of "I'm Not Getting Enough" are particularly successful, as are the Rhodes-led "Wouldnit Swing" and the piano-driven rocker "Soul Got Out of the Box." "I Remember Everything" is a surprisingly tender love song. Yoko Ono is still an acquired taste, to say the least, but Blueprint for a Sunrise hits as often as it misses. Sean Westergaard