CHORAL/SYMPHONIC (SYNTH)A beautifully packaged boxed set featuring nearly four and a half hours of unreleased music, with one CD from Robert Fox, one from David Wright, one featuring the pair working as a duo and another featuring the Code Indigo group project. The Special Edition set comes signed & numbered and complete with 12 page full-colour booklet.
Disc # 1: Robert Fox: ‘The Stuff Of Dreams’ is the missing, unreleased masterpiece from 1998/99. This album showcases the man at his most romantic – A stunningly beautiful recording containing all his symphonic/choral trademarked sounds, including a varied selection of rhythmic ideas and atmospheric excursions. Mix in a hitherto unheard gentler touch and what you have is Robert Fox at his most quintessential.
Disc # 2: David Wright: ‘Hypnosis’ is a classic live performance from 1997 showcasing unreleased material which was to have formed the basis of a new studio recording, but became a stepping stone to the ‘ThreeSixZero’ album. This is the nearest he has come to an analogue sequencer based album - A glorious hypnotic epic that is guaranteed to surprise and amaze.
Disc # 3: Robert Fox & David Wright: ‘Blue’ features a selection of old and new tracks written and recorded together by the duo. Included are digitally remastered, studio versions of ‘Overture’ and ‘Finale’, the previously unreleased on CD ‘Meeting at Trevalyn’ plus a new collaborative composition written specially for this project.
Disc # 4: Code Indigo recorded ‘Live At Derby Cathedral’ in October 1998. Probably this was their finest hour – a classic live set that has been painstakingly reconstructed from recordings made on the night to provide an awesome album. Featuring stunning electronic backdrops and synth leads, amazingly fluid guitar from guest axe man Andy Loben, this is one of those rare live performances where everything seemed to work perfectly.
Click on the ‘More Product Information’ link for an extended review and track details.
The Robert Fox CD is ideal for anyone preferring his earlier work from the ‘Asfafa’ or ‘Fire & The Rose’ days. His fans will be delighted to find an album’s worth of essentially what he does best – Melodic, almost classically influenced music that is almost spiritual in many ways, played with great passion and breadth on combinations of lead, string and choral synthesizers with electronic percussion – Ideal for the synth fan that has to have melody and texture to the forefront with no nasty hard-edged bits to interrupt the symphonic flow. The 8 tracks are: ‘From the Heart’ (6.39), ‘Blue Mountains Revisited’ (9.43), ‘Song For Sarah’ (3.30), ‘Heaven's Gate’ (9.45), ‘Chasing The Night’ (9.13), ‘To Sleep...Perchance To Dream’ (1.28), ‘A Cry In The Dark’ (7.44) & ‘Beginning To Dawn’ (8.10).
The Dave Wright CD is a collection of pieces selected from three concerts in 1997, all linked to form a two-part space-influenced suite. Right from the deep, dark opener you are drawn into a truly magical synth music universe filled with synth choirs, soaring lead keyboard melodies, drum rhythms and sequencer sections, all done in a traditionally romantic Wright style. The melodies change and evolve with orchestral impressions coming from synthesized woodwinds, flutes and oceans of flowing string synths. Passages morph into each other and flow beautifully on themes and constructions that traditional fans of Wright’s romantic music will adore.
The tracks for ‘Hypnosis One’ parts 1-5 are: ‘Dark Skies’ (4.14), ‘The Vision’ (1.31), ‘Beyond The Dream’ (3.28), ‘The Search’ (8.11), ‘To Touch The Sky...’ (6.54). ‘Hypnosis Two’ parts 6-14 features: ‘Night Falls’ (3.40), ‘Embers’ (2.00), ‘Mystic’ (3.10), ‘Lord Of Light...’ (3.45), ‘Rhythmiccato’ (7.50), ‘Sojourn’ (6.20), ‘...Lord Of Illusion’ (4.15), ‘The World Is Thus!’ (4.40) & ‘Sygyzy’ (9.58).
The Fox / Wright duo album opens with three long pieces from 1993-1994, the first of which is a Schulze-meets-G.E.N.E. style piece that is very tuneful, if a touch twee, but this develops into stronger sections along the way. The near fifteen-minute 2nd track is stronger - An epic of string synths, piano, choral synths, bass rumbles, deep percussive rhythms and lively synth duels. The final part of the three combines elements of each previous track and ends by throwing in the ‘kitchen sink’ (for these two anyway) as ideas emerge and fade with alarming rapidity. The four-part ‘Blue’ suite ends the CD with nearly twenty-five minutes of delicacy and grandeur, classical presence and soothing synth sounds. It is almost Vangelis-meets-Enigma in parts, and a neat showcase that brings out the emotive and compositional best from both musicians. The complete track details are: ‘Meeting At Trevalyn’ (11.58), ‘Overture’ (14.54), ‘Finale’ (14.10) & ‘Blue’ (23.40).
The Code Indigo disc was recorded live at Derby cathedral in 1998 and here the string synths continue to glide, the full-sounding landscapes continue to pass and the romantic melodic leads are never far away, but the presence of an electric guitarist gives extra energy to the music in this package. Click on the ‘More Product Information’ link for track details and more descriptions. The 8 tracks are: ‘Intro’ (3.28), ‘The Vision’/’Russia’ (8.30), ‘FWTB-Part 16’ (6.32), ‘A Question Of Answers’ – ‘Uforia’ (13.10), ‘Eastern Jam’ (10.52), ‘Cathedral’ (9.11), ‘FWTB-Part 11’ (8.05) & ‘FWTB-Part 14’ (5.50).