FLOATING WORLD

This is the first of the four Jade Warrior albums consisting only from Duhig and Field duo, accompanied by various friends supporting them as visiting musicians. The records were released by Island record company during years 1974-1978, and they all contain instrumental meditative prog rock music. They also start to move towards new-age sound, with stronger intensity as the recording days of the albums start close in towards 1980's.

The side A of the album has a suite starting with ethereal ambient sounds and acoustic guitar, which enter the stage by a gong crash. These tonal elements are being circled by a field of percussion. Some electric guitar smashes tested my nerves, but I liked the following acoustic guitar chords, which sounded a bit like Ralph Towner's "Solstice" record. Flute lines make the music run nicely with percussion, and there's also fabulous upright sounding bass here too. The drums make the theme to pulse, creating very pleasant groove. Later a dreamy drumless sequence emerges for acoustic guitar chords, electric solo guitar and quiet bells. In halfway ethnic drummings are presented, which create an African sounding scene, returning later to more Asian sounding flute's wail. Rockier sounding part follows with amplified guitar smashing Japanese sounding theme over flutes and several kinds of percussive instruments. Later the movement changes to more soothing flute driven motive, escaping to void as the record player's syringe returns from the end of the vinyl track.

Side B starts with quiet sounds which introduce a peaceful, calm surface of sound with distant oriental sounding electric guitar, acoustic guitar chords. Later a louder electric guitar theme appears, making this a very beautiful moment of music. Then comes a drummed part with nice guitar and flute solos, followed with Mongolian sounding vocal chants, coupled with an aggressive psych guitar solo and gong crashes. This felt as a bit irritating sound texture to my ears, I admit. As a contrast to this dense aural sequence, music moves then to more soothing guitar / flute pastoral, being one of the greatest moments here for me. Some of the most quiet and harmonious moments on the record are really exceptional, little reminding Vangelis in some parts, though not so synth dominant as his music. In the end when the spoken voices enter, the music starts to sound more new-age oriented, a direction where the band ventured later deeper.

If you like instrumental art rock music with symphonic structures and ethnic influences, then this album along with the other three albums recorded for the Island label are a recommendable albums four you to listen to. All four of these records were also compiled to a 4-CD box "Elements", which is a handy artifact bringing all of these albums for you. I like the earlier albums of this band more, but these are certainly nice to listen too.