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review by Bill Binkelman Before I proceed with this review, I'm going to preface it by saying that this is more or less a demo recording. Here are the artist's own words about the source of these songs: "The music is 'salvaged' off various cassettes I recorded from the mid '80s thru the early '90s so it isn't perfect - there are some pops and clicks between songs for instance and I wasn't able to get the CD recorder to recognize the brief gap between the second and third song as the start of a new song so they are lumped together (they are clearly two different songs but on the CD they show up as one long song - I listed them as 2a and 2b...)." How I came to review this: Dave Reade asked me to listen to this CD-R and evaluate it as to whether he should pursue returning to music or not. After listening to this demo, my answer was a definitive "My goodness, yes!" I decided to go so far as to review it formally. While there are one or two songs on the demo that I don't care for (notably the opening track, "Midnight Jig" which features a guest artist on electric guitar and which really sounds like it's a rock instrumental CD) most of what's here is good to excellent progressive EM that covers a wide swath of influences from Tangerine Dream to J M Jarre to Vangelis to Michael Garrison to artist in the new age/adult contemporary electronic genre back in the '80s, such as the late Pete Bardens. Despite the fact that these tracks are "salvaged" from cassettes, the sound quality is surprisingly good, and, in particular, the mix is excellent for a home studio effort. The second track, the one that Reade (a.k.a. Dave Raven) mentions as being unintentionally spliced together, clearly illustrates his versatility and his talent with synthesizers (sidenote: with the exception of the first song's guitar and some well-played trumpet on tracks 2b and 6, all the music on this CD-R is from electronic keyboards). The first part of track 2, "Hampton Classic" features a great pulsing synth rhythm set off by pounding trap kit drums and a soaring synth lead. This morphs into a delicate passage with melodic organ-like keys and twinkling reverberating synths that bring Wendy Carlos' soundtrack to Tron to mind. The second part of the track, "Lost Shadow of Gnomon," is a somber almost dirge-ish affair with strings, pounding tom-tom beats, and some great trumpet leads near the end of the song played expertly by the artist's brother Mike (as the artist informed me post-review). More Wendy Carlos similarity surfaces on the minor key shimmering synths that open "De Profundis." Few of the tracks on this recording approach the aesthetic of ambient music, although one could call various passages vintage spacemusic. However, forceful rhythms and catchy refrains dominate most of the twelve songs here, and truthfully that's where Reade's strengths lie, although the sweeping grandeur of cuts like the aforementioned "De Profundis" show that he can handle himself with a more floating style of music as well. "Traversing the Borderlands" oozes mystery, but couched in a high voltage whirlpool of washes, echoed synths and dramatic swells/drones that eventually attains a weighty beat underneath darkly tinted keyboards. "Into the Light" has an even more pronounced retro sound at times and the use of a harpsichord lends a neo-classical feel to the piece. "In Aeternum" is one of the other few non-rhythmic selections on the CD, and while it's well-done, it lacks the spark and fire of Reade's more dynamic compositions. Much better is "Lover's Leap" which is nothing at all what the title might suggest, being closer to spacy EM featuring retro synth arpeggios, whirring spaceship-like sounds, and dramatic staccato strings and, later in the song, a strong resemblance to the earlier music of Michael Garrison. "Nuclear Winter (A New Beginning)" begins with some disjointed cosmic synth sounds before strings played in an elegiac fashion take over the lead and are soon joined by chiming bell tones that made me think of Bardens' overlooked Miramar recording Water Colors. The bridge of the song loses some of the built-up momentum, but Reade finishes strong with the re-emergence of those bell tones and an assortment of underlying keyboards, some of it sounding EM and some if it sounding more new agey. Dave Reade has told me that if people are interested in hearing this, he will clean up the sound as best as he can (although, truthfully, this simply isn't that bad unless you're going to play it on a $5,000 system), possibly trim out a few tracks, and make it available as a CD-R for a reasonable price. I don't think there's any doubt that this music holds appeal for retro EM fans and even some lovers of contemporary electronic music. Shadows & Light isn't a perfect recording, but it's got plenty on it to recommend it. I've encouraged the artist to seriously consider jump-starting his career because if his music sounds this good, given the limitations of what he started with (cassette masters?), imagine what he could do NOW! For me, the main appeal of this CD is its straightforward embracing of one hundred percent EM, no apologies whatsoever. And if some of the keyboards and drum programming is a little dated or "cheesy," well, from what I'm hearing these days, cheese is making a comeback simply because it sounds more "human" than the alternative sometimes. Besides, in the case of Dave Reade, the cheese is ultra-smooth yet finely aged Cheedar &endash; not Cheez-Whiz! ® |
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