CINEMATOGRAAF

This is my first entry into Tomas Bodin solo work. And solo is the right word, since the guy wrote, produced, mixed and played everything on this album. You can tell by its title and covers that it was music inspired and/or written for movies. Even though it is not really my cup of tea, in that field, I can tell he is highly succesful. His work is full of imageries and movements that ressemble many moods and shifts of some screenplay. But above all the music in itself is enjoyable and very well done. I really liked the way his played and programmed his many keyboards to get away from commonplace or boredom.

Not really essential, at least for me, but a very fine CD by one of prog´s best new talents. He proves he is one of the true elements that made The Flower Kings so special. If you´re into instrumental prog, this is a must have. If you´re not, you should give it a chance. My rating is somewhere 3,5 and 4 stars.

This 5th release of Tomas Bodin is my personal 4th. At this point I'm only missing the debut in my collection and looking at the ratings that's the least so far so I can live with that for the moment. The four I do know have in common they are all worth checking out but somehow it seems they are also increasing in quality with each new release. And that's a great achievement by Tomas. And listening to this latest for about the 15th time now I can only subscribe the ratingaverage so far (as well as for the three predecessors by the way).

An Ocean in Between is the first of the three epical tracks on this album. Already at first listening I compared the first eight minutes of this song to Ravel's Bolero. And right now I still do, it's simply so striking ! I wonder if this classical piece is also intentionally the source of inspiration for this track but that's something only mr Bodin can answer. After these eight minutes the instrumental piece gets into some sort of a spin as if the room is turning or something. Tomas invited his wife (or girlfriend whatever) for a bit of laughter, they have a great time here obviously. Anyway, this goes on for about four minutes before a wonderful section of piano play is closing down this magnificent opening track. 4,25*.

Second track is a Spanish Ballerina in Love and lasts almost twenty minutes. It opens fairly quiet with an imitated steamboat horn (I guess). After this a few minutes of keyboardplay that first sounds somewhat like Jean Michel Jarre but later on suddenly like a mellotron. (I have no doubt Tomas has some giant synyhesizer-like keyboard with every possible sound thinkable and so he can do whatever he wants. And then a genius keyboardplayer like Tomas Bodin can completely do what he does best: be creative to the highest level. He does this album entirely on his own (including production) by the way, which is another thing to admire.) After some 10 minutes the track becomes highly melodic and these few minutes are about the best of the album. Where variation and creativity are concerned this is reaching masterpiece level. After 14 minutes another section of brilliant piano play in the style of Chopin, romantic, just really slower than the Polish pianist used to compose and play. This passage doesn't really diminish the high quality the track had so far. Brilliant stuff. 4,5*.

Third and last song is called Six Six Six and as we probably know it's the devil's number. In first minutes there are hints to TFK songs in the past (Garden of Dreams, Devil's Playground) just briefly but also there the devil (or its contrast) was the subject. Whichever, the first minutes are quite spooky, very ambient in that sense, another magnificent creation by Tomas. After about 5 minutes the track lightens up a little bit but still remains dark. It's only after about 8 minutes that the song gets more bright with another sensitive piano section. Is this the moment the devil is beaten or chased ? Again we'll have to ask Tomas, I'm just guessing. From minute 10 on Tomas gets to his most usual job by doing a keyboard section with great variation until the end. Again 4,5*.

Resuming this is another impressive effort by Tomas Bodin. It's very creative, virtuoso and what's probably most admirable is that it's his fourth unique release in a row. Each time he manages to do something completely different and I keep wondering when this source of his compositional part of the brain is empty. Hopefully never ! 4 very strong stars for this only just falling short for the masterpiece status. Highly recommended for any progger.