KITES

This JW album is one of those (the third of four I think) insufferable "Japanese" quadrilogy recorded for the Island label that transformed a very average hard rock duo (their first two albums) into an ambient duo, but not being twice better than Eno. In comparison with its two forerunner, Kites is more symphonic and holds a large list of guests, the most interesting for us progheads being Henry Cow's Fred Frith on violin. Kites is also less dual-natured with the original vinyl side, filled with a bunch of shorter tracks (from 36" to almost 7 mins) which are sometimes abruptly interrupted with much care (IMHO)

Plenty of lovely moments still available on this album, sometimes even sounding like Santana (Wind Borne), but in general not numerous and far in-between, the space being occupied by extremely slow music, that fails to enthuse the way some early Krautrock groups did, but their most experimental Arrival Of The Emperor, a bit surprising from Duhig and Fields. Not exactly essential if you ask me, but then again I don't know of a JW album that is essential, even in their Vertigo label days.