Vindharpen - Rejsen til Yenan (Denmark, 1975)

Antoine de St Exupery disappeared on a night flight over Africa in the second world war, presumably shot down in the desert. This is what makes it so ironic that he is best known for "Le petit prince" the greatest of all children's books, in which the prince dies in the desert to return to his home planet. The work is great because it can be read on so many levels. On the one hand it's clearly a hallucination, on the other it's a fable about a homesick space-traveling child, mainly it's about the overwhelming sadness of losing your childhood in the world of adults. It's odd that no other artist (to my knowledge) has used the story for a concept album, but here we have one from Denmark. Curiously absent is the planetary or sci-fi angle. Instead we get a very varied instrumentation with some accordeon, fiddles, a lot of basic acoustic stuff, piano, guitar, flute, plus sitars, mandolins.

It starts strong with a gentle intro leading into hard and fast piano with xylophones, congas, some synthesizer in a subtle use. Some songs evoke the bazaars of north africa, which never really make an appearance in the book, maybe this belongs to the hollywood version of the story. But there are very delicate acoustic folk ballads, with the melancholy so typical of northern european music, which reflect the sadness of the book. The overall quality is similar to Camel but slightly less sophisticated and smooth and with a middle eastern vibe.

Aasteroide b612...