WRIGHT, DAVID 
806453
CD
THREE SIX ZERO

DREAMY/MELODIC (SYNTH)

WELL, who would ever believe that this was the same Dave Wright that was THE out and out romantic of the UK synth scene in the late 80's/early90's, not me for sure, because when this was issued it was a very brave and admirable effort to expand his music into entirely new instrumental music territories altogether. Easily this is one of his most adventurous albums to date, and apart from a few minor criticisms, it is one of his best. It’s arrival was great news for us because we knew we could now safely target David Wright’s music to a much wider range of customers than ever before, but is it for all you 'Electronic Music' die-hards out there? Well, yes, but it's much more than an 'EM' album - It is 'Electronic', but then it's also ‘Celtic’, ‘World’ and even ‘Classical' at times - It's a mature work of art that successfully encompasses several styles into one unique musical form that should not be pigeon-holed! Like many other so called 'Electronic Music' albums we could mention, this is music for people from all walks of life - timeless music that can be enjoyed by any (and I use the term lightly) 'serious' music lover, including 'EM' fans! Click on the Click on the ‘More Product Information’ link and expand this to a full-blown track-by-track run-through of this eighty-minute album.

‘Guardians’ opens the album with a track packed with rhythms, melodies and samples - like an amalgam of Deep Forest and Enigma with exotic rhythms and male/female well vocals to the fore. ‘Dark Side Of Paradise’ starts life out as a beautiful piano melody line then develops into a ‘Tubular Bells’ styled synth rhythm with added Gregorian chanting - think Mike Oldfield meets Enigma here! ‘Sliding’ breaks off into a faster paced rhythmic expedition with voice samples and flue textures mixed in for added effect. Electronic drums join in and then shards of dense string/brass synth textures lead us into a rather garbled, avant-garde passage filled with massed samples and twisted synth lines, before rejoining the more grandiose sounds to complete the piece. ‘Memories’ returns to the ‘Tubular Bells’ like riff, only this time with added cello sounds and deep, emotional string textures, with flashes of flute that just get into the mix and no more, but it's the strings and cosmic chorals that sweep in and out of the sound-stage that really make this track. ‘Change And Adapt’ is an apt title for a track on this new styled David Wright CD, and here, the music is laced with slabs of symphonic synths with more ethnic male/female vocals littered over the surface with a rhythmic percussive undercurrent powering the piece along before the Eastern 'wordless' female vocal becomes the central point. ‘Tales From The East’ is track 6, a 'World' meets 'Synth' music affair with laid-back, sweeping synth melodies flowing over a steady percussive rhythm pattern with some more of the wailing female 'wordless' vocal treatments added. ‘Wishes’ is more like a straight forward EM track with a superb symphonic sound providing a soft bed for an infectious rhythmic passage to develop and evolve on in gloriously smooth fashion, with soaring synth melodies flying through the sky above with an exciting array of jet-like sounds passing through the stereo image like tuneful high speed jets - a hauntingly infectious rhythmic, melodic track and the strongest on the album up to now. ‘Sygyzy’ opens into a few moments of passionate copulation and then bursts into another finely tuned melodic symphonic cut featuring some incredibly cool soloing from soaring guitars and searing synths, with a great drum backbeat pulling it altogether in the second half. ‘China Skies’ is a superb piece of space music (for want of a better word) that any musician from that genre would be exceedingly proud of, with some superb synth effects and little whistling melody lines filtering through the hazy cosmic textures as you get deeper into the piece - truly beautiful!  ‘Akirima’ is a slow celestial piece with violin, piano and female voice joining the light layers of synth, to form a short, fairly simplistic, but thought provoking track. Track 11 is ‘Shah’, a slow, brooding, dreamy and symphonic piece with some (unnecessary to the ear, but important to the concept) voice samples appearing on top. Otherwise this is a rich, deeply emotional work with the synths sounding very orchestral until the closing moments when more of the ‘Tubular Bells’-style sounds creep back into the mix. This continues into the shortish track 12 (‘Listen’), but this one gets the full-blown ethnic (male/female) Eastern vocal treatment with layer upon layer of percussion and voice samples taking centre stage. 'Tales From The West' goes back into symphonic territory, opening with a beautiful piano melody line backed with sweeping symphonic chords from the keyboards mixed later with massed rhythms from the Deep Forest camp, but this is not 'dance' in any way or form. ‘Before The Storm’ is also exotic, but more classically influenced with deep Celtic leanings coming from the flute textures that blossom out of the bed of symphonic synths and airy female chanting. The title track closes the album in dynamic, dramatic style with a slowly evolving pulsating synth fronting a symphonic background, forming an almost ‘Eye Of The Tiger’ style riff without the drum beat! Further lashings of lavish synth textures and melodies build up into a sort of, semi-grandiose finale, which peters out towards the close with a simple piano line and some soft, floating synths.

Weight: 150.00 g