Dr. Chrispy
VHS
Review by Gary Hill
I almost landed this under “non-prog” because of the EDM characteristics of the set. The thing is, those are tempered by textures that are closer to things like Tangerine Dream, Vangelis and Synergy. While most of this is purely instrumental, a couple songs have vocals, most particularly the album’s closer which might be the highlight. Similarly, while the main elements here are electronic keyboard based, there is a song that features rocking guitar, too. Overall, I find this to be a considerably effective and entertaining set.
This review is available in book format (hardcover and paperback) in Music Street Journal: 2018 Volume 6 at lulu.com/strangesound.
| Track by Track Review | ||||
| Be There Soon Keyboard textures open this in style. It works out to a classy sort of groove that’s infectious. The vocals on the cut, although pretty far down in the mix, bring some soulful vibes. |
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| Gotta Getta Gatta Feeling almost like an extension of the previous cut, this instrumental is so cool. The horns lend a real jazzy vibe to it. |
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| Sleeping in Tokyo More purely electronic, this lands well in the EDM vein. Still, it has some decidedly electronic prog elements to it, feeling not that far removed from something like Synergy. This is pretty and quite cool. It has some space rock things at play at times, too. |
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| Blue Sky Line While there is a definite groove to the rhythm section on this piece, the keyboard elements bring a decidedly proggy sound to the proceedings. It’s another classy electronic number. |
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| Vanmover I love the melodic elements on this, and the rhythmic structures bring a lot of energy and driving power. Again this makes me think of a lot of the electronic prog of acts like Tangerine Dream and Synergy. The short dropped back section at the end is all cool. |
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| Goodbye Shanghai I dig the funky groove on this cut. Now this one lands more fully under the EDM heading, but it still has a healthy helping of the proggier element at play. |
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| 60 Miles Up This feels scenic and cinematic. It’s decidedly proggy and so cool. It does get more energized and EDM related further down the musical road. |
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| Muromigawa I love the rhythmic groove that starts this. There is a bit of a vocal bit as sort of a percussive element. This has an intriguing nature, very artsy and very cool. There are more EDM things at play on this tune. |
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| Vancouver We’re back into more Synergy related territory on this thing. There is a huge change later as this fires out into some serious guitar rocking prog. It drops to just a dramatic synthesizer bit around the four and a half minute mark. That takes it to the end. |
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| Torotoroid A distorted sounding groove starts this. An EDM groove joins. As it continues some healthy helpings of something like Kraftwerk is added to the mix. The cut evolves and grows from there. |
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| Dreaming of Home There is another rhythmic vocal thing here. Again I’m reminded of Synergy on this. It has some energy and groove, but is more firmly on the proggy versus EDM side of the equation. There are both world music and jazz elements in the mix here. |
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| I’m Going Down (Under) With some space rock in the mix, this definitely feels like shared territory between Vangelis and Tangerine Dream to me. It’s another classy cut. There is more of an EDM edge later in the number. |
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| Sea A bit slower, there is still a cool rhythmic groove to this thing. The cut has some great electronic textures and melodies built into it, too. It seems a solid merging of the EDM with more proggy elements. After the half way point of the cut it gets into more pure progressive rock zones with some killer synthesizer soloing. |
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| Maui Speaking of progressive rock, this one lands pretty fully in that camp. It has a nice flowing energy and some killer melodic excursions. The synth sounds are so tasty and this thing is one of my favorites here. There are some interesting twists and turns here, and this does get some more EDM like stuff later. I am particularly enchanted by the melodies on the closing movement. |
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| Follow The Wild Geese Arguably the most purely progressive rock piece here, this one features vocals of the female variety. It’s the most mainstream cut here, too. It’s also one of my favorites. It represents a great bit of variety. The vocals are quite effective, and there are some great synthesizer melodies built into this. There is a real symphonic bombast here, and this gets so powerful. |
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