DEZO URSINY & IVAN STRPKA: NOVÉ MAPY TICHA

"Nove mapy ticha" opens up with a disco groove, something dreaded for prog rock fans, but many prog rock bands began to take in influences from popular music in the late 70s, listen to Pink Floyd's album "The Wall" for example. The song as a whole doesn't have much to do with disco however, with a good rhodes fusion workout and some nice synth work by guest Marian Varga. "A na to myslim" is a contrastingly slow and jazzy song, with beautiful musical "landscapes" coming from various synths and piano. The "exposition" of the song is based on a funky clavinet riff, as was common Ursiny's musical form. "Na Malej Stanici" is the first epic of the album, reaching almost 10 minutes. It moves through several moods, but mostly it is in the slow atmospheric mode, with some beautiful melodic themes. The next tune is very poppy but with great songwriting craft. "Zelene jablko" is a groove based song with a saxophone riff similar to Canterbury bands, but with a decidedly more serious tone. Finally we reach the jewel of this album "Domestic Flight", why it has an English title, I don't know. In its 10+ minute duration it moves through marvelous melodic sections, and a good fusion based groove right in the middle. At the end the main theme played on harpsichord is now doubled by strings, rising in key with each repetition. Truly a beautiful song. The album closer is very unexpected being a simple acoustic folk tune, and as far as I could tell the rest of the album had not even a trace of acoustic guitar! Very pleasant tune to listen to.

We can see here great evolution from previous albums in terms of composition, as Ursiny had begun to develop a more streamlined and mature approach to songwriting, which also inevitably meant that he started to move away from the prog rock aesthetic and closer to his own creative vision. But there is much on this album for the discerning prog rock fans!