FRAGMENTS OF LIGHT

Many years ago I bought a Pink Floyd's bootleg on vinyl. It had songs like Point me at the sky and Crumbling Land. Songs with a touch of country and flower power psychedelia with a very particular sound, specially in the guitar.

Well, this is how this album sounds. From a composition perspective the tracks are closer to the Tangerine Dream of Electronic Meditation in the most electronic parts, but also Amon Duul II or Cluster...Krautrock in a word, but reminding of open spaces, like the famous long straight roads in the Arizona Desert.

The Title track is opened by some acoustic guitar. The sound of the keyboards reminds me to soemthing already listened, but I can't currently identify what. Maybe the old Peter Bardens...yes, it's not the music itself. The sensations that this music gives me are similar to those which years later I'll receive from Seen One Earth, but while the Bardens' album was deeply in the 80s, this one belongs totally to the 70s.

Nuclear War In Your Brain" is mainly a keyboard solo that reminds to Vangelis and Tangerine Dream. More to Vangelis for the mute singing. Effectively this song has similarities with those contained in "Short Stories".

"Music Is Painting in The Air" starts with two chords, the same as Crumbling Land. It's very close to the contry-psych Floyds of Zabriskie Point.

Windowpax And The Stone Sender" is tendentially on the TD side. An electronic track that contains, if you listen very carefully to the first seconds, a medieval-folk element. The loops on the guitar create a two-minutes Froese-like piece.

"Space Energy Age" is pure psychedelia in Amon Duul II style. Just percussions, vocals with a lot of reverb and a bluesy guitar solo.

"Metafel + Metalac" (what the hell it means?) is just one minute of keyboards on a major chord. Very spacey. That kind of track that, depending on the player's state of mind can last 1 minutes or 20 indifferently.

"Space Closure" has a beat flavor. I think to some proto-proggers of the 60s like Moody Blues, or even Animals. In 1974 this was already a track from the past. Six very good minutes of early psychedelia.

Another bit of space rock with "Music With No Gravity". The title gives the idea of this rhythmless keyboards chord on which voices and electronic noises joke like the "witch of the flying teapot".

"Do You Love Me" is back to the acoustic Krautrock. A short song with an easy theme, pop and radio friendly if it wasn't for the kraut arrangement that makes it very interesting. It remoinds me to the prog period of Battiato, too.

"Life Beyond Darkness" is opened by an acoustic guitar on which you can expect to hear Annie Haslam singing with her high-pitched voice. It's a high-pitched keyboard instead. A nice instrumental.

The album is closed by "Telepathic Children". It's a track midway from the very early Tangerine Dream and the Pink Floyd of the first Gilmour (Before Meddle, I mean).

Let's get metaphysical.

4 Stars