RACHEL FLOWERS

Rachel Flowers is a great keyboardist. She also has an "orchestral mind" I mean she makes the musical arrangement sound great, I especially like the vocal arrangements . She reminds me of Paul McCartney or Neil Morse in the way they manage to imagine all the instruments sounding coherently. It's said she plays all instruments. It all could make a great prog album, but that's not enough. In fact it doesn't really make a great prog album. What about the musical themes? IMHO those are what really built a prog album. I don't found great prog music in this album. I've listen carefully to songs like "Take me away", "The Darkness" or "Feel" but they aren't prog epics, They are nice long songs. OK this is a good album . . . but non-essential. P.S.: Maybe one of my problems with this one is she plays all instruments. Does she really thinks no one can do it better than her? I can't imagine Robert Fripp or Peter Gabriel giving up teamwork for the ego, McCartney style.

I find myself with two different opinions of this album, all depending on what I focus on: The music on its own or the music combined with thoughts about the artist.

The music itself is very good. The vocals are very good.Rachel wrote ALL the parts and played ALL the instruments and did so very, very well. Such a talent. Did I mention that she is blind? Generational talent? Her vocal style, melody and sound reminds me so much of French Canadian artist, Jorane, and also Kate Bush at times. Very emotional. Very good.

So, the challenge in rating this album. The music, completely on it's one is a solid 3 for me. Well worth a few listens, for sure. The music in consideration of the artist is like a 4.5 for me. Another thing I noticed was that it's an album that I need to focus on deeply to really enjoy it. It doesn't grab my attention over and over, like my favourite albums of this year do, often and consistently. If you can give this a focused listen or two, and if you can appreciate the individual achievement this album is, then it's well worth your time.

Newly inducted member of the ProgArchives database, American multi-instrumentalist Rachel Flowers' 2021 release. Brace yourselves for some top notch Crossover prog from a very gifted musical genius.

1. "A B" (4:13) opens sounding like one of Peter Gabriel's more aggressive rock songs--complete with a Tony Levin, Manu Katché and David Sancious sound and feel. A jazzy Fender Rhodes solo commencing in the second minute is followed by an excellent Lee Ritenour/Dave Fiuczynski-like jazz guitar solo in the third. A very solid prog instrumental. (8.75/10)

2. "Take Me Away" (11:47) a prog epic that sounds every bit like a cross between IONA, BIG BIG TRAIN, and ROB REED/MAGENTA. Again, the performance skills on each and every instrument amaze--not to mention the compositional vision necessary to imagine it all. Whereas some of the compositions of the aforementioned artists seem to fall flat when rendered onto tape in the studio, Rachel's composition comes to life in the very fullest sense! (22.75/25)

3. "Too Much" (7:47) opens as a dreamy, piano-based jazz-prog-pop song in the Peter Gabriel vein. At the three minute mark the music shifts into more aggressive MAGENTA-like territory. Nice! Incredible vocal arrangements for the chorus and codas: simple must be heard! Great song. Incredible melodic and chordal choices. (14/15)

4. "Love Today" (4:40) opens like a modern pop vocal over a simple organ and piano background. Multiple vocal tracks work like a smooth WILSON-PHILLIPS song, though the music and melodies remind me more of the Broadway musical Rent. The third minute brings a big shift into a heavy rock motif--like a BEATLES or ANDREW LLOYD-WEBER theme. Despite being a little too poppy for my tastes, I have to admit that this is a masterful rendering of this style. (8.5/10)

5. "This Is the Way I Am" (6:19) what opens like a "big" RPI (or Pat Metheny Group) production of a Rikkie Lee Jones song, turns into a biting, sarcastic indictment of the seeing world once the vocal enters. Rachel's message is conveyed with remarkable poise and maturity. Great West Coast jazz/Lyle Mays/Pat Metheny section begins at the three minute mark and continues through the solo church organ that takes over at the 4:30 mark into the final jazz vocal section and finish. Wonderful! (9.25/10)

6. "The Darkness" (10:03) opens with a dramatic orchestral arrangement. Drums and rock instrumentation enter after three and a half minutes to establish a rollicking, hard-driving theme with a multi-voiced vocal performance reminiscent of a cross between Tori Amos and Heather Findlay. Great stuff! Awesome guitar solo beginning at 6:45 followed by wonderful section of blended keyboards and orchestra blend that remind me of 1990s Pat Metheny. Great melodies, mixes, and engineering--perfectly beautiful and never bombastic. Astonishing! One of the best prog epics I've heard all year! (20/20)

7. "Feel" (11:56) feels and sounds like a lost epic from the late 1970s by the great Brazilian jazz-pop keyboard/singer Patrice Rushen--performed, no doubt, with Steely Dan's amazing session band of LA jazz musicians. The instrumental ninth minute sounds like a tribute to the late great Lyle Mays. Incredible! (23.5/25)

8. "Beautiful Dream" (4:42) opens like a pensive classical piano solo before Rachel's airy vocal joins in. Sounds and feels like a heart-felt love song; Rachel has conveyed the emotion behind her message quite powerfully. Again, not too proggy, but something that Kate Bush or Tori Amos would certainly be proud of. (8.5/10)

9. "With You" (6:21) another pop-rock-founded tune that could easily have come from an album by peak Ambrosia or Anita Baker. Again, the vocal arrangements impress and astonish (as well as the superb Jeff "Skunk" Baxter guitar soli in the fourth, fifth, and sixth minutes). (8.75/10)

Total Time 67:48

I have no qualms admitting that I feel very blessed and privileged to be listening to this solo artist--who is new to me: for here is an example of a human being that is truly realizing his/her potential to its fullest. Even more astonishing is here facility with bass, guitar, orchestration, and vocal arrangements. The maturity and mastery of her electric guitar soli alone are enough to raise eyebrows, but then one has to take into account that she is playing all of the instruments while somehow still managing to sound like a top notch Steely Dan LA sessions jazz band!

A-/five stars; a minor masterpiece of Crossover progressive rock. Easily one of greatest musical surprises to pass my way in 2021 and an album I'd strongly urge any and every prog music lover to check out for themselves.

After an «A B» (4:13) introductory influenced by the Adrien Belew period King Crimson (it is Rachel Flowers herself who says it, having composed this song immediately after listening to her idol guitarist during Cruise To the Edge 2019 in which she participated), the album continues with a gigantic bigger than life «Take Me Away» (11:47), with a complex and subtle score for large orchestra and keyboards, which shows Rachel's mastery in composing demanding but popular and imperishable symphonies. Strings, winds (wood and brass), percussion, large organs, piano, long organ bluesy solo , accompanying a guitar and a rhythmic rock sharp and percussive, the whole magnified by a sparkling production and mixing, worthy of resurrected Georges Martin or Phil Spector, wrapping while protecting it, without withering it but giving it all the necessary space, the beautiful voice of Rachel. All this does not prevent the melodic fluidity. "Take me away/ to a place far from here", she sings, and I guarantee you that Rachel takes us there, far away, far up, in a place where the colors of the sky seem purer, the sound of birds amplified, the more real life, a world that reveals itself to us as remade to new. But, wait, ? after checking the credits of the album, it turns out that Rachel Flowers was completely alone to make her record. Any sound we hear on Bigger On The Inside has been imagined, composed, performed, played (keyboards, bass, guitar), chosen, programmed, sung, mixed, produced, by Rachel, alone in her studio, Simply with high-performance equipment and good sound libraries (for orchestra and drums, hallucinating realism). But it is with Bigger On The Inside that she reveals herself as a major composer in the world of today's popular music, and also an incomparable singer (3 and a half octaves for a soft but firm voice). On the feminine side, I would venture to say that we had not known such an artistic mastery, such a profound musical vision, such a genius of composition, such an ease in interpretation, with a superhuman independence, a melodic gift at this exceptional point, such an ability to create a successful music, since Kate Bush, Joni Mitchell and Emily Bezar. Rachel Flowers seems to be truly possessed by her music (you have to see how she drops everything on the final singing of «Too Much») as much as she does, in all the cells of her body, but always with benevolence and the energy of youth. Bigger On The Inside can have undeniable therapeutic virtues («Feel» and its Big Band at Rachel's fingertips, or the solar «With you» that makes you want to hug your loved ones and your neighbors), but can also send back a darker image, as on the raging «Too Much» or the grandiose «The Darkness» which sees the appearance of some heavy and metal guitars, with an impeccable guitar solo (sort of tribute to John Petrucci?). Diversity is always present (the intimate and poignant «Beautiful Dream»), the proud and fiery «This Is the Way I Am»), always nourished by influences as varied as the prog of Chris Squire and Keith Emerson, the symphonic and mixed jazz-pop created by Joe Jackson or Stevie Wonder, the science of melody made by Paul Mc Cartney, the groove of Gino Vannelli and Earth Wind And Fire, the contemporary jazz of Esperanza Spalding or Jacob Collier, the vocal prowess of Ella Fitzgerald or Maurice White, the virtuosity of Herbie Hancock and the sound research of Craig Armstrong or Peter Gabriel. And at the end of all these references, something unique appears, a perfect record of Rachel Flowers as we always dreamed of. Rarely had an album carried its name so well: bigger inside, and that's an understatement. More than an hour of fabulously lively singing and music that leave us with the pulsating heart of joyful fever consuming our arteries in a magnetic ecstasy

Listen 2016

As her website states, this is music that defies categorization, in that it is quite different all around .. however, there is one thing that many folks are not remembering ... her work is VERY VISUAL ... even if we think that her blindness prevents her from seeing things that "we do" and she supposedly can't. But, if she can not "see", she certainly can feel so beautifully with her music as to enchant one's imagination.

I can't help thinking of this material as soundtrack music, and it is weird to me that someone has not picked up on it.

The thing that one will notice quickly, is how grand her design is, and how she puts it together ... the best of Claude Debussy, the very best of Stanley Clarke, a very definite touch of Miles Davis, some Herbie Hancock although I would imagine that there is some Chick Corea here as well, certainly John Coltrane, some Frank Zappa guitar style ... and some beautiful instrumental jazzy stuff that is just honey for your ears.

Just recently I wrote a review of her latest album (Bigger on the Inside) and one of the things that I mentioned was that all that seemed left was orchestrated music ... and wouldn't you know it, a couple of weeks later I got this album, and there it was ... the orchestrated material, just as good (if not better) than I thought.

And, right at the start, (Greg's Favorite) the album let's you know this is not "rock music" at all, but mostly what used to be known as "jazz", in the orchestrated mode ... although you will not exactly feel that full blast until the third title of the piece ... Run for Miles. Greg Lake did meet Rachel and this was one of his favorite pieces, we are told, although I can't say that I see, or hear, a lot of Greg here, unless he suggested details for a bass line? ... very pretty and well done to start an album with but it really shows her appreciation for ELP, the one band that mostly impressed her, and whose material she has helped make better known, even though most "rock fans" don't like these things, because copies are terrible. Oh yeah, Stravinsky is terrible 100 years later! (Sorry!)

It is insane, and amazing that someone can do a treat for Claude Debussy in "Dawn Points" and it ends up feeling like it is in the wrong place ... that it belongs in another composer's listing. Yet, here it is, and so pretty ... and unlike a lot of rock music, she knows how to link the themes of the music, so that a "main theme" is all inclusive, instead of it being something that is separated from the rest, one issue with rock music, not knowing how to include a main theme properly into their design.

"Run for Miles" will likely make you feel like listening to Miles Davis, although not one of my favorites, but certainly one of the most impressive "improvisers" in all of music, he would have given "krautrock" a run for their money faster than anyone else. As we know that Rachel plays all the instruments, realizing that this impression is right on the money, complete with Herbie's piano and the bass and drums, and then Rachel's keyboards added, so Miles gets a breather. It is a fascinating piece, and one that will make us feel like we missed something. Towards the later part of the piece, I think that it is more like Chick Corea now playing and Herbie adding his piano in the background ... a combination that would make us dizzy, and crazy while listening to it all. But, somehow, it fits so beautifully, and so well, that you just want to flow along and continue listening.

"Goes to Eleven", for me this is a piano extravaganza illuminated with orchestrated touches. It is really good, and a sign of how Rachel sees an orchestra and how well she can imagine various instruments mixed together. WE don't hear enough orchestras with a bass player that makes it better and more innovative. We don't hear enough orchestras with an electric guitar that makes it better and more innovative, and classical music orchestras in every town still ignore all of this, and won't even consider a Mike Oldfield, or Vangelis! In a way, showing how a bass (or any other instrument) can be fused into an orchestra, here it is, and it does not sound out of place, or that the orchestra is second fiddle to the "rock star".

The rest of the album is just as impressive, and at times, you wonder ... what is Stanley Clarke doing here? And yet, he fits just as well as anyone else in here, and no doubt, in the end, the only thing that you can say is ... wow ... that is some really well done stuff and the compliments to the great names are excellent, and you know what? ... I want more!

To be able to write this, I ended up listening to the album probably 4 or 5 times, because it was so alive and exciting ... and beautiful. You rarely get a chance to listen to things that stand out so much, but this past month has been an amazing journey for me, and a lot of it has to do with Rachel Flowers and her amazing style of creating music. Be it the orchestrated material fused with jazz, or some orchestrated material fused with rock music (Bigger on the Inside), it is all so fluid and so lovingly put together ... it makes you wonder ... it really does ... as it takes you away ... and you see this ... and you see that ... it just never stops ... how much more would you want?

NOTE: Ranked 5 for its excellence, although it might not be considered "progressive rock music", but it is very "progressive" in its mixing and design and appreciation of a lot of music history specially such that is considered "jazz", that is presented orchestrated and beautifully interpreted as if the originals were right here with you!

I have, for at least 60 years of my life heard a lot of music. Some is great, some is OK, and some did not really grab my inner mind. But one thing that has always been there and it is something that is hard to speak about, is that somehow, a lot of it had a visual sense for me, which was always the clue about the music, I think. History discusses classical music as a real important visual thing, and this goes way back to the great symphonies and concertos. Rock music, sadly, has replaced a lot of its musical lyricism with lyrics and (sometimes) senseless solos, that supposedly tell you what the music is about ... and then you hear something that is not "visual" per se, but the lyricism in it, drives it well ... until you hear Rachel Flowers ... "I feel I could fly ... " and see the music take off, you know that what you have here is special and far out. Not to say that the rest of the album is not as good, it is and then some. The whole things stands out.

I have, for a long time, appreciated Rachel Flowers' work, and specially for me is her acoustic versions of Keith Emerson's works, with TARKUS on the piano being the special one, that I wish was available as a CD, and not just on the tube, and folks realize what a magnificent piano concert it really was, and how the heck was our beloved Keith Emerson going to show it to his mates, so they could figure out how to present it in their own style and ability ... and they did, as well as they did a lot of other works.

This album, I suppose that it is easier to say that it is a very personal album, and she sings it with a conviction that is very strong, and the music is not afraid to show it even more. So in the piece "The Darkness", another very personal song, she unleashes a metal edge here and there, and the funny thing ... it's not out of place, and shows very clearly how one can illustrate a lot of words and not fail to create something that could easily be thought of as just a solo. According to info on it and her interview, it is a sort of take on Dream Theater's guitar work. If that is not enough, the following piece "Feel" or even more far out, and I suppose that I could easily tell you that ... goodness is that Frank on the guitar? ... but it's not. It's Rachel, and the quality of how it is used and the orchestrated style with which these two pieces are done, make it a fundamental and incredible listen for those that love music that really flies, instead of expecting it to tell you that it supposedly flies. Here, the music lives and the amazing thing is that you get the feeling that George Martin is the one that put this stuff together, because the way that each piece is presented is so well done, and it flows from the keyboards as an orchestra to just a piano, or voice, and then something else ... a combination that is a treat for one's ears, if we want to hear something special, instead of just a hit song.

It's a very personal album, and you can tell, and she speaks of it on an interview, that she did all the mixing, and it also shows that she has a very clear idea of what she wants to do with a piece of music, instead of relying on simple lyrics to tell you ... she sings well, and it is easy to flow on it, but the music itself, lives so beautifully with her words, that it's hard to think of them separately.

One thought came to my mind, that the next step is probably going to be a concerto or a symphony of some sort, because what she does with the music, and eventual mix is super special, and I think it will stand up for a long time.

A long time ago, Guy Guden (Space Pirate Radio) made another one of his funny comments, that sometimes things are so heavy they are weightless ... and if I have a comment about this album it is just that. It is super progressive, in that it does not conform to any cookie cutter form and instead stuck to the quality of the music. And sometimes, this is confusing, because a lot of the "progressive" thoughts and fans, tend to stick to a definition that does not even conform to the very word it professes to be and follow ... but in the hands of Rachel Flowers I can tell you, that "progressive" is in good hands and you and I can only hope that we will hear a lot more, for this is special and something that you will not hear every day ... well, when I get done hearing "Feel" for the umpteenth time, I will let you know, but its appreciation is still as strong as the first time ... you can really FEEL this album if you are not conditioned by "forms" of something or other. And I'm not sure that an artist can ask more or give you more than that ... and present it so beautifully.

A very special album and highly recommended.