MR. FANTASY

TRAFFIC's debut is one of the more neglected gems of the British psychedelia, probably due to the fact it never scored a hit in America, at least in the format it was released in UK. But it is a masterpiece of songwriting and eclecticism in its own right.

Winwood, Capaldi, Mason and Wood created an amazing album of seemingly different influences and approach. Psychedelic keyboards, hard guitar solo a la CREAM, British folk and music-hall, jazz paranoia and Indian raga with overall Winwood's soulful voice make an album that can be enjoyed over and over. Mason gives important musical component with his guitar, bass and sitar, offering one of the best raga moments in rock music, "Utterly Simple", which beats the Fab Four's "Within You, Without You" by and large IMO. Each song has its place on this mature record, but the title track - allegedly drug-influenced imagination - "Dear Mr. Fantasy" (which was to be honoured by such giants as THE GRATEFUL DEAD on their last official live set "Without a Net" in 1989), beautiful flute ballad "No Face, No Name, No Number", and "Coloured Rain" with distinguished Wood's saxophone are the highlights. One can notice that the peculiar sound of TRAFFIC, with dominating organ, piano and woodwinds (sax and flute) and with ever diminishing presence of lead guitar and bass guitar, makes it a sort of precursor of the acts like VAN DER GRAFF GENERATOR, albeit coming from different attitude: VDGG were always more avant-garde and "classically" influenced than TRAFFIC, who sticked with R'n'B, folk and jazz scheme. However, Wood's saxophone at certain moments sounds almost as crazy as Dave Jaxon's!

This is a wonderful album, keeping in mind that this review refers to the original UK version, that is one of true "proto-progressive" rock albums of the great period 1967- 69, worth investigating by any serious fan of this genre.