DREAM

My first approach to Kitaro. It happened when, many years ago, as a YES fan I read about Jon ANDERSON singing in this album. The day after I had the CD in my hands and I liked it since the first listen. I was actually a bit into Newage and I knew of Kitaro as a newage artist, but from the albums that I know, if there's one progressive it's this one. Let's not forget that Kitaro has been in Far East Family Band, so he knows how to make prog and psych music.

Dream is a concept album, even if most of it is instrumental. There's of course a lot of keyboards and you have to reach the third track to listen to Jon's voice. "Symphony of the Forest" is a perfect intro. Not properly an ouverture, but sets the mood which is then carried on by "Misterious Island". I don't know what the concept is about, really. The two recurring elements are the "Lady Of Dreams" and the "Island".

What I know is that the album is very good. In particular, the guitar of Hiroshi Araki sounds very Floydian. The riff in the middle part of "Lady of Dreams" which also features an ascending sequence of chords similar to "In The Flesh", could have found a place on "The Wall".

Add to this the vocals of Jon Anderson at his best, even if on three tracks only, backed by his daughter Deborah. In brief, this is for what I know the most symphonic album of this keyboards mastermind. One of my favorites at the time it was released and still the one that I prefer in the huge Kitaro's discography.

Symphony of dreams

Noticing that Kitaro was added to Prog archives recently, I recalled this album that I first heard years ago which features Jon Anderson on vocals. Being an absolute Yes maniac, I am always interested in hearing anything that a Yes member is involved in. Giving it a more serious listen now, I am enjoying it more than I remembered.

Since Dream is so far my only experience of Kitaro's music I cannot relate it to his other works, but it can be compared to some of Jon Anderson's solo stuff as well as with Anderson's contributions to the works of Mike Oldfield and Vangelis. One year before the release of Dream in 1992, Yes had released Union - an album that included some "New-Age"-like pieces such as Angkor Wat and Take The Water To The Mountain. These numbers might also give you an idea of what the vocal tracks on Dream sound like.

Anderson wrote the lyrics and contributed lead vocals to three tracks on this otherwise instrumental album. The vocal tracks are Lady of Dreams, Agreement, and Island of Life. His voice can also be heard on Dream Of Chant, which is as the title implies a chant. My favourite track is Agreement.

Dream is a nice addition to a comprehensive Jon Anderson and extended Yes-related collection.

The Japanese multi-instrumentalist, producer and arranger Kitaro, considered one of the inspirational sources and contributors to the New Age genre, despite his refusal to be labelled as such, invited Jon Anderson to collaborate with him in 1992 on his fifteenth studio album, "Dream".

In communion with the elements of nature, his constant source of inspiration, Kitaro recreates mystical and reflective atmospheres using a wide range of synthesizers played almost note for note, with an intimate and spiritual aura that is not out of tune, as with the opening "Symphony of the Forest" or the orchestrated and suspenseful "A Passage of Life". And Anderson, who is so fond of such things, accompanies him symbiotically in the best passages of the album: the masterful "Lady of Dreams", "Agreement" and its delicate guitar solos fused peacefully with the instrumental base, the final chorus of "Dream of Chant", and the luminous and soulful "Island of Life". This collaboration is, in my opinion, one of the best performances of the British singer in his career outside Yes.

Inclined in his renowned career to develop proposals without the participation of singers, probably to avoid interference in the direct sensorial connection between the music and its receivers, Kitaro made with "Dream" one of the few exceptions, giving Anderson's significant contribution a special attraction to the album.

Good

3/3.5 stars