JADE WARRIOR

I listened again to this album the other morning. Me and my fourteen month old son enjoyed our brekafast as the sun shone in throug our window and the world suddenly seemed so incredibly beautiful. Waves is a beautiful album, there is no doubt about it. The gentleness and relaxing mood (dare I say ambient?) is quite breathtaking. Someone compared it to Camel's Nude and to some extent I do agree.

There are several sections in here that gets my attention, with beautiful flute and at times a biting electric guitar, especially in the second part which, as others said before, is more in the realm of fusion. At least that is true in parts. The whole of the album is more of a gentle exercise in mellowness and ambiance, a british excursion into the worlds beyond our own european existance. There are, as evident by the cover, asian influences on Waves, which are very relaxing.

Though beautiful and relaxing I can't help but feel it is more pleasant than anything. Great as it is, still it is merely pleasant. That should not, however, deter anyone from listening to the album. I promise you, it will be a listening experience you'll enjoy if you care for relaxing music. It may seem like a contradiction giving it only three stars then but that is the thing, though I love listening to Waves it becomes the soundtrack of the moment. Not that much remains, besides the feeling of pleasantness. (Is that even a word?)

Conclusion: Waves is a great piece of music. Relaxing, gentle and calming. Still, it's good for the moment but fails to capture my imagination for any longer period of time. Still I will never sell my copy. It is a precious piece of plastic I really enjoy.

Jade Warrior is an outstanding and innovative album by a group which was prepared to be really different. Why it gets such relatively mediocre ratings from the Progarchives fraternity/sorority is totally beyond me. Whilst Jade Warrior's second and third albums are really good, it is their first one which is truly stunning. What sets it apart is the blend of Japanese themes, flute solos, progressiveness and a lack of pretentiousness unusual for the period. The best way to experience Jade Warrior is to listen to the album as a whole in one sitting and not to pick and choose tracks. So follow All Music Guide's lead which describes it as a "remarkable" album and just enjoy!

First an admission.......I was lucky enough to promote Jade Warrior at the Astoria 2 many moons ago. They were kind enough to send me a copy of this album so I could use the artwork. This is the only Jade Warrior album I own so I have no idea how it compares with their earlier material. I have lived with this album for many years now and every time I put it on I'm amazed at how 'modern' sounding it is. Brilliantly produced and well layered. It has much in common with Talk Talk and bands like the Alan Parsons Project. Each track boasts multiple 'parts' and you're never left for long to get tired of a particular passage of music. That's not to say it jumps around needlessly, rather that it ebbs and flows between acoustic reverie, lush orchestrated diversions and proggy flute salad. The vocals suit the music perfectly and the whole feel of the album is of a group of musicians who are relaxed and happy with their music.......it's not forced or 'difficult'. Highly recommended.

The shift from a psychedelic rock group approach to an all-instrumental one, in which key group members Duhig and Field would act as multi-instrumentalists whilst various guest musicians threw in their contributions, did a world of good to Jade Warrior. Their instrumental works were, of course, always their best ones, and the full diversity of them is on display here. Much of the album adopts an extremely tranquil, proto-ambient mood, though there are occasional bursts of activity - Red Lotus, as has been observed, has a furious guitar riff worthy of Robert Fripp's work from the same year. Haunting, beautiful, this at last is Jade Warrior playing to their strengths and abandoning their weaknesses.

Improving somewhat from Released, which explored the hard rock side of Jade Warrior in what I thought wasn't a very successful way, Last Autumn's Dream turns its attention to the band's more tranquil aspects, with the notable exceptions of Joanne and (especially) Demon Trucker. The band still haven't quite realised that they're just not cut out for rocking out, but at least on this album the ethereal walls of sound from the debut begin to make a return, and the distinctive, distorted wail of Tony Duhig's guitar is always a joy to hear. It doesn't quite recapture the best aspects of the debut, but it makes up a lot of the lost ground. Three stars.

For their second album Jade Warrior retreated to safer psychedelic territory and greatly reduced the more unusual elements of their musical style compared with their debut. The influences of musical styles from across the world are toned down greatly, and gone are the shimmering, ethereal walls of sound that were so wonderful to lose oneself in; in their place are harsh, brash, psychedelic rock pieces which when they work are decent enough songs of their type but when they don't work - as on the moronic chant Reason to Believe - they're unbearable. A very unfortunate backwards step for the group.

By 1971 prog had made it big, to the point where bands were already emerging that showed a heavy influence from the greats of the genre. Jade Warrior was not such a band; from their debut onwards, they would showcase a wonderfully unique sound, taking hard psychedelic rock as the basis and adding a bit of flute, a few jazz elements, and musical ideas sourced from all over the world, making this an early "world music" release - as well as, at points, a early "new age" release with its tranquil, spacey textures.

That said, the album is rather uneven - the least interesting track is probably Psychiatric Sergeant, which is mainly a straight-ahead hard psych song with flute, reminiscent at points of early Jethro Tull. Where the band really shines is where they avoid conventional song structures in favour of creating shimmering, gorgeous walls of sound which the listener can lose themselves in, which they do manage to achieve for most of the album. So, not a perfect album, but definitely a strong debut from a band well worth exploring.

Way out west

After having conquered Asia (or at least attempted to do so) on previous releases, Jade Warrior took on South America with their fourth and final album for Island Records (their seventh release overall). This turned out to be a successful move and the result is a fitting finale of the group's Island years. The previous two albums had been weaker and showed clear signs of the group's inspiration running dry. Way Of The Sun once again finds Jade Warrior sounding fresh and interesting. The symphonic elements that dominated the previous Kites album are here effectively combined with the jazzy elements of Waves as well as the rockier aspects of Floating World and the early albums. The ever present World Music influences that are part of the group's trademark are still here of course, but there naturally is a shift from Asian sounds and melodies toward Latin American ones.

Like the previous three albums, Way Of The Sun is wholly instrumental. Many different instruments are utilized and the instrumental attack is far removed from the traditional one in Rock music. As I have mentioned in previous reviews, it is hard to categorize the music of Jade Warrior - they certainly have a musical identity all of their own. One noteworthy thing about the present album is the sound of the bass guitar which occasionally reminds me of that of Chris Squire.

While I don't consider Jade Warrior to be an essential band, a few of their albums are worth listening to. Way Of The Sun is one of these albums together with Floating World and Last Autumn's Dream.

Wind borne

Not content to stay in one place for more than one album, Jade Warrior once again came up with something different for Kites. If the previous, Waves, was a very jazzy album, Kites is much more symphonic in nature. It is also more eventful and varied with numerous moods, tempos and levels of intensity being explored. Again, like the previous two albums, Kites is an entirely instrumental affair (apart from some wordless vocals) and there is not much connecting this music to that of the group's early, more Rock-based, albums. It was always very hard to put Jade Warrior in a specific genre, but this is surely not Rock music anymore. New-Age and World-Music might tell some part of the story, but not the whole.

While Waves consisted of only two sidelong tracks, Kites is split up into many shorter pieces. Like on all their previous albums, this one also has a sleeve with a heavy Asian aesthetic. But this time, more so than ever before perhaps, the music itself too has an Asian sound. The flutes are very present, as often with Jade Warrior, but here strings play a dominant role for the first time, giving the music a more orchestral/symphonic style. While, in my opinion, Kites is about as interesting and pleasant as Waves, none of these albums are really my cup of tea and neither of them represents the best of what Jade Warrior has to offer. I cannot recommend this to Prog fans in general, but those with a special interest in the music of the group should not miss these quite unique albums.

First wave of New-Age Jazz

One thing one can always rely on Jade Warrior to do is to come up with something different with each new album. With Waves, the group almost completely eliminated the Rock side of their sound in favour of an interesting mix of New-Age and Jazz. As opposed to the previous album, Floating World, there is no longer anything on Waves that connects with the early Jade Warrior sound (of their first three albums). Indeed while the previous two albums had been kind of transitional between the old and the new, Waves displays a group fully transformed from eclectic and experimental Rock band to an early New-Age ensemble. One should not, however, as with all other Jade Warrior albums, expect an album that falls as easily into any given category as that. They still manage to retain their own spirit, even when they float above (but never really dive into) different genres.

Waves consists of only two sidelong tracks, Waves part 1 and Waves part 2. Again, as on Floating World, the music is entirely instrumental throughout. There are indeed some nice parts occasionally, but also lots of grey areas. To my ears, this album is too uneventful for its own good with only a couple of more melodic and rhythmic passages over its 40 minutes plus running time. Steve Winwood adds some nice piano and other keyboards. Some parts are surprisingly jazzy.

Overall, Waves is a pleasant if rather unexciting effort. In my opinion, Jade Warrior peaked with the previous two albums, Last Autumn's Dream and Floating World. But for those who enjoy the more relaxing side of Jade Warrior's music, Waves is a worthy addition.