JOURNEY TO THE NESTING PLACE

A project, revealed in France around mid-00's, by British multi-instrumentalist Peter Fallowell, a Prog Rock enthusiast since his teenage years in the 70's.Fallowell moved to France in 1973 to study percussion and got involved in a number of small groups without much success.At the same time he was agoraphobic, suffering on stage, this fact pretty much forced him to abandon the band formation and start composing music for the medias as well as teaching.But around the 90's he revisited his talents regarding composing for a music group, these were actually the early roots of what was to become Multifuse.For his first album he invited female singer Cherie Emmitt and bassist Tom Allen, ''Journey to the nesting place'' was the title of this work, released in 2009 on Fallowell's own Crooked Cat label.

With Multifuse you will be most reminded of female-fronted acts such as ILLUSION and EARTH & FIRE, unfortunately not during their best and most intricate periods, but at the time when both groups have turned into Pop Prog combos, struggling to find a steadiness regarding the music style.Three mid-length tracks come as the initial proposals of the group and all three are based on mellow guitar playing, interesting female vocal harmonies and smooth keyboard parts, creating poppy sensibilities, romantic atmospheres and some sort of 70's Prog vibe due to the resemblances with the aforementioned acts and the use of electric piano/clavinet.The music is mostly vocal-based and deeply sensitive with occasional breaks into instrumental parts with both spacious and light symphonic touches, but the focus here is mainly on tight songwriting.I was really curious to enter the 25-min. ''Yours again'' and see what the trio was after to.If you have listened and liked late-70's RENAISSANCE, then you know what this track is all about.A meld of Art Pop, Neo Prog and modern Pop in the vein of DIDO, pretty close to a cross between MAGENTA and PAATOS, where the vintage influences start to fade away and give their place to a modern production and style with thematic changes, passing from groovy Pop to OLDFIELD-ian soundscapes and a somewhat symph-based Neo Prog with elaborate tunes and melodies.

Too much Pop, too little Prog according to my books.Interesting listening for fans of Art Pop with splashes of Prog, but I guess many fans of the genre would find this to be very much song-based and less attractive compared to other releases...2.5 stars.