FLOATING WORLD

On 'Floating World' Jade Warrior continues its musical travels through the Orient with their first fully instrumental record. The band had changed labels, from Vertigo to Island Records. Had the band been an oddity of a progressive heavy psych band with lots of Asian world music influences, they would now fully focus on creating a new genre of world music and jazz infused art rock. You'll hear standing bass, triple flutes, Asian percussion, classical guitar, organ, some choral sections and the sometimes doubled melodic fuzz guitar of Tony Duhig. There's one heavy guitar piece on the album, and I myself don't bother that the band would leave that all together on their next records. I do really like the strange tribal/choral piece with the heavy fuzz guitar on side two. Besides these two outburst of heavy psychedelic energy, the moods are ethereal, melancholic, majestic, tribal and optimistic. The record has its individual tracks, but it all flows rather naturally from one moment to another. The mixing has that nice wide sound-stage that really allows for loosing oneself in its majestic soundscapes. The quality recording sounds rather timeless as well. Jade Warrior has its own way of musical story telling and because they aren't much like any other progressive rock group they aren't even considered to be a major group of the genre. It's even rather bizarre how the band doesn't fit in any category because of their heavy psych roots. Moreover, their type of (Asian) folk influences aren't anything like the other English groups. For me personally Jade Warrior has become one of my favorite eclectic prog groups and their's a lot to discover in both their 1970-1972 Vertigo period and their instrumental run on Island Records (1974-1978). Four stars for this gem for sure.