This is a new reissue of an album from Tim Blake. Blake is best known for his work in Gong and Hawkwind, but he also built a name for himself with a series of keyboard albums. The music here is most closely related to things like Synergy, but there references to Tangerine Dream and Mike Oldfield are valid. However you slice it, though, this instrumental (one song has some spoken sound bites) album is both all Tim Blake and quite good.
This review is available in book format (hardcover and paperback) in Music Street Journal: 2017 Volume 4 at lulu.com/strangesound.
Track by Track Review
Caldea
Coming in particularly mellow, the keyboard textures that create the early parts feel soft and quiet. Other textures join to create an electronic music mélange that has a nice energy and some great melodies. It gets a rhythm section after a time as it drives forward.
Floating
At close to nine and a half minutes in length, this is the second longest piece here. There is a suitably space rock oriented element built into this cut. It has a good energy and vibe. The shifts and changes on this are organic. The piece has a bit of a Tangerine Dream and Synergy meet Hawkwind vibe.
Om Beach
This one minute cut really is all about the sounds of the tide. In fact, it's just sound effects.
The Great Pool
Rising up from the last cut, this is the epic of the set at close to twenty minutes in length. Keyboards create intriguing layers of sound as this begins. As it grows I'm again reminded of Synergy. There are some Asian elements in the mix for a time. A section later makes me think of Mike Oldfield's "Tubular Bells" a bit. After the ten minute mark it drops way down to a mostly rhythmic section. Then synthesizers rise up with some new intensity. It eventually works back out to something more like the Oldfield sort of sounds. There is a cool synthesizer shift further down the road, though, with the synth weaving some killer melodies over the top.
Across the Sea of Dreams
Gentle melodic elements feeling a bit like tuned percussion create the textures here. There is space music here along with some almost classical elements later. There are some spoken bits about dreaming as it approaches the end.
Jacuzzi Surfing
This comes in slower and mellower. It works to more energetic stuff. This is another song that makes me think of Synergy quite a bit. This one clocks in at over nine minutes, making it the third longest composition here. There is some awesome stuff that sounds like guitar soloing on this later, bringing it into definite space rock territory.Given that there is no guitar listed on this song, I have to assume that it's keys, but it sure could fool me.
Caldea II
I really like the energy and melodies on this. There are definitely world music elements here. This is an intriguing piece of music.
