Soft UK folk/praise outfit seems caught between the gentle appeal of simple British ‘70s folk sounds and ‘80s moves toward light praise/MOR. I’ll get the negatives out first: the use of unison singing for seven vocalists is kind of a detraction. I’ve seen this approach work before (as in the excellent early Cloud lps) but here it makes the vocals sound a bit lackluster. The group is much better when one member is permitted to sing lead. The string synthesizer also sounds lifeless and is unnecessary. The band’s strengths win out in the end, however: the acoustic guitars are consistently in the front of the mix (I liked the spoken poetry over classical guitar that closes out side 1). There are some nice flute effects, too. A couple times they toss in sax for a soft jazz feel. It’s a lesser work than Wine Of Lebanon and Valley Of Achor (earlier incarnations of the same band) but is still nice to sit back and listen to. As with their previous lps, the fantasy/nature cover painting is outstanding. (Ken Scott – The Archivist).
Tracks:
01. Have You Read The Papers
02. His Kind Of Love
03. Love Has Taken Me
04. There Are Moments
05. You Are The Christ
06. Misty Morning
07. The End Of My Day
08. Vision Of Your Kingdom
09. I'm The Person
10. Father's In His Sanctuary
11. His Glory
Biterate: 320 Download
but how do i listen to that "mpc" file?...my god!
ReplyDeleteI am working on the correction, Will take awhile to re-up them.
ReplyDeleteI had a week where my CD drive died and I was searching for a program to make MP3's. I found the program that turned them into MPC's which I had no problem with as I also have a program to play them. I soon discovered the problem and I thought I had gotten rid of all the MPC files but I guess I missed some. Will leave aother comment when the new link is posted.
diakoneo
The link has been changed on this one so you will now get the MP3's.
ReplyDeletediakoneo
thanx very much my friend..it's ok now.thanx for your patience and lovely music.
ReplyDeleteI think this is a great album and as I've felt that way for over 20 years, it's hard to see anything that could change that now. I remember the first copy I had was on a cassette, bought from this obscure little bookshop well off the beaten track. It had probably been in the shop for close on 10 years and it was in such bad condition with stains all over it and the tape was such that when you played one side, you could hear the other side faintly playing backwards !! Far out ! And until I bought the LP some 14 years later, this was my copy of it. I really had concentrate on the side playing.
ReplyDeleteBut right from the start, I loved the album.That '86 -'87 period was a groove for me as I discovered many wonderful christian artists and much of it was hit and miss, with virtually no guidance, save for a couple of obscure books, one of which was rather innaccurate. But there was a thrill of the chase that was often surpassed by the results of the chase and this was one of them.
I remember thinking at the time that it was so very English sounding. Even though I had a few LPs by English artists (Adrian Snell, Cliff, Stewart &Kyle, Paul Field, Bryn Haworth, the Wall Band, Barrett Band etc) only Snell and Stewart & Kyle seemed to have avoided being swamped in Americana (not that this was a bad thing ! No USA, no popular music, simple.) But Achor seemed to deliberately parade their Englishness. Years later when I bought the LP, I discovered that the nucleus of the group were from a wing of the church up in Finchley in North London which made me smile as I grew up a mile from there and even now live pretty close to there. They seemed very local to me, a fact that I was unaware of in 1987.
Anyway, that first rubbishy copy that I lived with for 14 years could never get in the way of my enjoyment of the album. Right from the kick off I was struck by the male vocalist; he truly reminded me of Syd Barrett of early Pink Floyd. Speaking of vocals, I have always found there to be a delicious three way balance between male and female and massed vocals. Rarely ( I think only on "Father's in his sanctuary") do the massed vocals carry an entire tune. What generally happens is that a lead vocalist carries one part while the mass vocals carry what amounts to a chorus or hook. I do think it works really well.
Some of the rhythm section ( I'm sure it's the keyboardist, bassist and drummer, almost certainly the latter two) had, along with guitarist Norman Barrett, been part of Alwyn Wall's group, the Wall Band who, the year before this LP came out had recorded "The prize", which for me is one of the seminal British Jesus rock albums, ever. Those fellas were on a roll and although none of them are outstanding on this album, they are indispensable. They certainly beef up the Achor sound and it's a tougher sound than on their previous recordings. There is a lovely ubiquitous acoustic guitar all the way through but the playing is never twee unlike their other albums. There's also some interesting use of flute and saxophone - indeed the sax element was wholly unique and original to me. It's always been a feature of the album and that's saying something as it's only used on three of the twelve songs. To be honest, though I've heard the saxophone family on hundreds of songs and LPs, the way it's deployed here has always seemed to stand on it's own. Until I heard a great album ( it's one of the earliest ones on Heavenly grooves) by a group called The Last day that is. There, they use the saxes of the great 'lost' jazz saxophonist, Don Lanphere to great effect and infinitely more than Achor do. But I can't help wondering if the band had listened to "The last day" because the similarity of feel and entwining within the overall sound is, at least to these ears, striking.
More extensively used (five tracks) yet less striking is the synth. It's used in an almost mellotron type way as a cute melodic wash and though it's not my favourite sound of all time, in it's favour is that it rarely gets in the way. Another interesting instrument, it all but consigned the mellotron to the scrapheap for 25 years and threatened to do likewise to not only the organ, but just about every keyboard that had been around since the 60s and even string sections were in danger of going the same way as the dinosaurs. But then a funny thing happened. The likes of Herbie Hancock, Stevie Wonder, Jan Hammer, Chick Corea, Keith Emmerson, Michael Omartian and Rick Wakeman stopped using the synthesizer to try to emulate other instrument sounds and concentrated on giving it it's own voice. It took a while but ultimately it worked (some would lament synth driven pop !! ). Achor's use of it here demonstrates them caught between two stalls, really. Had the album been recorded six years earlier, they may well have used a real string section. By '78 a synth was cheaper and didn't look down on the music as many classical session musicians were prone to !
There is a lovely tension on "End of my day" between quiet introspective reflection, biblical storytelling, imagination and sheer exuberant joy. I even like the untitled spoken word over acoustic guitar piece. I call it "Like apples". My highlights are 'Have you read the papers' (the line that starts "it's not an intellectual excercise" always brought my Dad to my mind and still does) with it's dry, laconic Syd style vocal, 'There are moments' ( the lines "in his love I find my harmony" have long been die hard reality for me and have attested to a firm love that's kept me sane, many a time), 'You are the Christ' (it opens with words that for me are so true - "I heard of you from a friend of mine.." then it gets even more autobiographical as it deals with fear yet speaks of the equal reality of not being able to let go of Christ) and one of the deepest, most real and exuberant cries of joy from the heart, 'Vision of your kingdom' which interestingly always went down well with the church musicians of a former fellowship but was too challenging for everyone else, it seemed.
But in truth, I love them all. And credit must go to one Claire White who wrote the songs and also did some singing. The band as a whole were magnificent on this but Claire provided them with high quality raw material to fashion into top notch product. I've had Lps where a band makes a great job of substandard material and also where a band squanders the great material to hand. When both come together, however, it is both powerful and immensely satisfying.