Themes - Contemporary Contrasts (Library, 1977)

You never know what you'll get with these library records... at least these composers have great track records: Hawkshaw, Parker, and Moran have all made some great music. But without some possibility of listening, which sometimes means purchasing blindly, it's quite impossible to assess the music inside for merit. And it's amazing how many of these libraries were made back in the day. So now I try to do a little bit of research before wasting my money on terrible records, of which my wife complains there are far too many in the basement taking up space that could be better used for, oh I don't know, a new shoe closet, or maybe a collection of handbags.The point is this is a pretty good one. There are shades of Heldon on the first side, some inventive chord changes reminiscent of french prog on "echoplex", some Terry Riley-like keys on the side B opener, Crystal Cascade: basically, this is a record very much influenced by what was going on in prog and fusion in the mid-seventies, although by the time this appeared in 1977 as we all know the fusion and prog trends had already become utterly passé in the UK... It's interesting to me looking at the back of the sleeve that simple emotional descriptions of the tracks-- for ex. echoplex is described as "languid movement utilizing repeat echo" are so apt for this type of exercise, indicating again how closely connected music is to emotions, and I daresay, these connections are universal in all humans. I've talked a lot in the past about the evolutionary mystery of music, i.e. what is its survival advantage in humans and ultimate function, and it still is indeed a mystery, especially this strong link between universal emotions and musical creations. Even the minor third (sad) versus major third (happy) takes a lot of explaining that requires straddling both mathematics and biology. But as I've said before, for those of us who passionately love music (and all those reading this must be of that disposition), music is the only taste of heaven we will ever have on this world of impermanence and mortality.

First up, a very progressive number with some interesting passages, Expanding Horizons:


Then the aforementioned Echoplex:


As well as the B1 track Crystal Cascade:


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