ALLAN HOLDSWORTH & GORDON BECK: WITH A HEART IN MY SONG

To be honest, this duo album from Allan Holdsworth and Gordon Beck doesn't sound very different from an Allan Holdsworth solo album. Allan found himself a kindred spirit in Gordon Beck, a jazz keyboardist who was already performing in the sixties. As you look at Allan's discography, you will see that it is not the first album which he made together with Gordon (and it wouldn't be the last either).

Both musicians are excellent soloists. The music is vibrant. If you would make comparisons with an existing Allan Holdsworth solo record: it is closest in sound to Sand, which is no wonder, because it was released a year before.

Even though this album sounds much like an Allan Holdsworth solo album, surprisingly 5 out of 7 compositions are credited to Gordon Beck. Only 54, Duncan terrace and Sundays are written by Allan. The former is also to be found on Allan's solo album Secrets.

Allan and Gordon are bothe virtuosos on their instrument, but their virtuosity serves the music, is just there to create an atmosphere.

Allan is playing a lot of Synthaxe (guitar controller, guitar synthesizer) on the album, which together with Gordon's keyboards give the album a dreamy atmosphere (like often with Allan's Synthaxe albums).

The compositions are very well, the sound is representative for that era, but better than on Atavachron, his first Synthaxe - endrenched album.

Four stars, especially because Allan and Gordon really stimulate in giving their best efforts for this album.

The album of Allan that counts from "The Things You See" announced in 1980 and accomplishes competing with produced Gordon Beck through years of indeed eight year ..work.. has finished the symbol of his style in the 80's exactly.

The introduction of Synthaxe was one expression to music as the challenge and the reformation for Allan. I think that I got one answer by competing with Beck of the attempt of the technology to "Secrets" in 1989 because I place "Sand" announced in 1987.

Making the sound might be matched to some degree and the composition that catches the breath of two people from another angle respectively and matches it give the impression of a mechanical limited element.

Answer to one technology at which Allan aimed at that time. And, he was interested in the childhood in Saxphone and Violin and a mechanical age was always an always common element in the progress of making the sound like the voice and a complex code.

The fact who is not the popular writer of the guitar that Allan is simple can been proven even by the performances of the work of this duo and other musicians. If the degree of degree of freedom is considered, I feel the area of his width also with works other than Solo though the performance that exactly enters the item of Jazz/fusion when the history of his music is researched doesn't exist officially so much.

Even if a lot of tunes that Beck composed existed in the album, Allan was able to answer it because the element existed between two people since beginning.

It is guessed that the sound was able to be matched and to be removed because musical instruments each other are reformative as a collective impression. The tune that gives a certain kind of POP in addition to a good, original element of Allan and a fresh impression has the atmosphere that might be never so listened in Solo of Allan.

This is more of a Gordon Beck album than an Allan Holdsworth album. The keyboardist wrote five of the seven songs on this album, and his solos tend to be more out front. And that's a good thing, as Holdsworth plays mostly the dreadful Synthaxe throughout the album. I've stated it before on other reviews that his synth patch selection on the instrument is usually terrible. He tends to use mostly, at least in solos, a sound somewhere between a harmonica and a violin. And it makes everything he plays sound sappy. Meanwhile, Beck's keyboards are lively and entertaining throughout.

On a happier note, Holdsworth does come up with some nice sounds backing his guitar on his solo piece, Sundays.

Not bad, but by no means essential.