Lemmiwinks Posted December 13, 2004 Share Posted December 13, 2004 1. Return To Tunguska 2. More Lost Without You 3. We Play The Game 4. Tijuaniac 5. L’Arc En Ciel 6. A Recurring Dream Within A Dream 7. You Can Run 8. Chomolungma For youger people, Alan Parsons is kind of the God of the 60s- 70s era music: he worked with none other than The Beatles and Pink Floyd to name just the best of the best Parsons has a lower profile since the 70s but still continued to make music and this album marks his interest for mostly electronic music and using plugins and stuff. The reason I'm reviewing it here is that Return to Tunguska is a collaboration with none other than the God of early 90s psytrance and chill-out Simon Posford !! So basically old psychedelia meets new That's enough to wet any psychedellic music lover's apetite... The track actually seems more like 80% Shpongle - 20% Parsons . It starts with an airy synth line toped by the "Shpongle voice": you know, the voice ran through the vocoder. Then the track slowly pics up, it's REALLY nice!! I'm not sure but I have the feeling that I've actually heard this intro before, probably the intro to Shpongle live in Eilat desert set (but I don't have that recording anymore so I'm not 100% sure). Anyway, then some guitars kick in (probably Parsons' part in all this, the guitars are played by David Gilmore of Pink Floyd fame BTW), personally I find that part a bit cheezy... Basically this would've been a perfect Shpongle track if it weren't for the guitars on top (don't care if it's played by some ex-Pink Floyd dude... Also, this means that the "collaboration" is simply an older unreleased Shpongle track on top of which Gilmore plays a little guitar... hardly the kind of collaboration we were expecting... Then again, I have become used to being dissapointed with such "dream team" projects so the fact that this is just a so-so track and not THE next best thing isn't that big of a surprise to me... More Lost Without You is a pop-rockish track with lyrics... not much to do with psychedelia at all... Mammagamma 04 reminds me of some old dance techno... not really my cup of tea... We Play the Game sounds like some "future pop": basically trance with vocals on top, which is also followed later in the track by some breakbeats and a guitar. Maybe future pop lovers like this, personally I can't stand the concept of voices on top, it ruins the whole track for me... BTW this track is also a collaboration between Parsons and a well-known electronica group: none other than The Crystal Method . Again, "dream teams" can be decieving... Tijuaniac is yet another collaboration with a less known group: Nortec Collective . It starts out as some calm jazzy electronic lounge music but then gets explosive around 3:40... just enough to wake you up if you were getting sleepy lol. Great effect IMO I like this track. L'Arc en ciel is, you guessed it, yet another collaboration, this time with Uberzone . This one reminds me of some Ozric Tentacles : electronic cross-blended with guitars and all-round kindof cheezy... there's also a nice Moog line in there for fans A Recurring Dream Within a Dream is a collaboration with Alan Parsons's son, actually advertised as "A composite of two works - ‘A Dream Within A Dream’ and ‘The Raven’"... what's interesting is that I hear some Shpongle -like vocoders in this one, which later transforms into more Kraftwerk -like "robot vocals". It all has an old industrial feeling but at the same time airy feeling. It also reminds me of Air I haven't heard the original versions of these tracks, but the end result sounds nice You Can Run is some 80s-like synth pop... not my cup of tea... and last but not least Chomolungma is an interesting but a bit cheesy electronic track. Again, it reminds me some 80s industrial, an overall dark feeling. And now for the end surprise: the track kinds of gets a little repetitive in the end and then come in some vocals by none other than John Cleese of Monty Python fame!! "How much longer is this going on? I mean, it just runs on and on and on sonny... Now why don't you ask asimple question so 'In what year did Cardinal Richelieu die?' 1642. That's the sort of interchange we should be having not this sort of rambling explorations of your own unconscious. Now come along, son." Hilarious!! After a few seconds there are some dog barks... don't really understand why they're there except for the sake of being wierd... they got my dog barking "in reply" though Conclusion so-so album (but then again, it's not supposed to be psytrance or psy chill-out so I guess this explains that. The Shpongle collaboration which is probably the reason most of you will want this CD is good but not THAT good, there are tons of other Shpongle tracks that are much better... unless you always dreamed of having a guitar on top of a Shpongle track Also, if you have the set from Shpongle live in Eilat desert you probably already know it... Other tracks are interesting but still I wouldn't consider this worth the money... On the other hand, if you're a big fan of Pink Floyd - Dark side of the Moon AND Shpongle then this is worth much more than the asking price for the collector's value alone! I must admit that this "old psychedelia meets new" is enough to make ANY psychedelia lover curious about the result. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Towelie Posted December 13, 2004 Share Posted December 13, 2004 I think the track 1 is the only good one here.. i think the guitars just spice it up and make it little more interesting than the basic shpongle sound, could be actually best 'shpongle' track iv heard.. the rest of album just didnt work for me.. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sawfly Posted December 13, 2004 Share Posted December 13, 2004 Track #1 is brilliant! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
emmmgeee Posted December 18, 2004 Share Posted December 18, 2004 Yay, I finally have that track without some Hebrew Radio Announcer killing the Romance Really Good track, I love the blippy drums on it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
simorq Posted October 2, 2008 Share Posted October 2, 2008 This album is better than so-so. A new layer in psyspace :posford: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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