RING CYCLE 
855956
CD
FLAME OF DAYS

CONTEMPORARY (EURO-ROCK)

Make no mistake; this is a fantastic, highly enjoyable album! The fifty-three minutes of music on it is not easy to define or pigeon-hole, but it possesses a musical quality and consistency, the likes of which you will rarely find on any but the exceptional classics of serious music down the years. ‘Flame’ has 9 accessible, enjoyable, complex, immaculately produced, brilliantly played and composed tracks, and as a work of 20th century music, it is utterly timeless and has to be considered one of the truly great pieces of modern contemporary music around right now. Influences come from a wide variety of musical areas and it’s not always easy to define where, but Frank Zappa’s is often hinted at and therefore becomes one name that does immediately come to mind on the first airing. Using a vast array of instruments such as: electric guitars, strings, keyboards, piano, organ, violins, sax, trumpet, flute, tables, bass guitar, drums and other percussive instruments and devices, this is highly individual music that has a towering sense of melody, cohesion and dynamics. You cannot class it as rock, or jazz, or classical or progressive – It’s just a contemporary mix of all of these genres and much more besides.

The album opens on ‘Second Sigh’ where a strong, flowing sea of sound from massed ranks of strings, drums and saxophones, conjuring images of Frank Zappa and Jean-Paul Prat, until, after a few seconds, the whole soundscape changes and you hear a solid Captain Beefheart-style drum rhythm, with ringing guitars in the background and a husky female vocal that sounds like it could have come off Brainticket's ‘Cottonwood Hill’. The voice recites a short lyric over the instrumental collage, and then the percussive rhythms are strengthened by the addition of tablas. The guitars fade out and the soaring flow of strings and saxes return, taking the lurching rhythms up on to an altogether higher plane. As distant sax takes the lead, the now-faintly echoed voice returns and the sound is dense, yet clear as a bell as the brief vocal ends and the track does too. A fantastic opener to what you will discover to be a truly unique album. ‘Winding Henceforth’ is track 2 and it starts with what sounds like piano and that gorgeous voice, to which are gradually added various layers of violins, bass guitar, drums and organ in various degrees of volume, creating a magical soundscape that is immaculate and highly individual. As before, this track retains that vast sense of melody, cohesion and dynamics as the layers and textures flow strongly and effortlessly through the airwaves. Like most of this album, this piece is neither rock, jazz, classical or progressive – it’s but a contemporary mix of them all and much more besides. Track 3 is ‘Verily Varied Reel’ and it begins with a cascading keyboard sequence with added violin in the background as the female voice, this time wordless, warbles away for a couple of seconds, until the whole ensemble roars. The composition changes as it goes, with tablas and drums creating a Santana-like rhythm section sound, while a combination of keyboards and trumpet provide lead lines as textures and layers appear and disappear as the track rolls towards its conclusion. ‘Over Here There’ is next and it begins as a Zappa-esque version of The Roches, with beautiful, all female harmonies and crystal clear instrumental backdrops. As the drum rhythms return, a flute winds its way through the mix, then steel drums take a sudden lead role as the sinuous electric bass and distant blasts of wind instruments combine to produce a fantastic soundscape, the likes of which you’ll have never experienced before, as the vocal becomes more ethereal and multi-tracked. Track 5 is ‘Treat (Less Trick)’ and it continues the instrumental mood with lurching drums and beautiful wordless female harmonies. The steel drums soon give way to the real vocal line, as a lead tabla rhythm emerges above the bass and drums that are driving the piece along. An organ line thickens out the sound as the steel drums return, then an electric guitar flies over the soundstage in suitably fusion-esque fashion, and this is just as gorgeous as the rest of the music. ‘Dazzling Gleam’ is similarly rhythmic, but more pastoral in feel, as the instruments take a lighter approach to this largely instrumental piece. It is the combination of sounds, as throughout the rest of the album, that are more important than any of the brief bursts of lead instrumental space that appear as the composition rolls along for nearly ten minutes. The final 3 tracks are all instrumentals and largely continue this pastoral-fusion style of music, with all sorts of combinations of piano, percussion, wind, brass, keyboards and guitars offering up a most amazing set of ensemble work.

Weight: 150.00 g