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"Exploring the myths and legends of Avalon, this haunting album evokes the mystery of the Arthurian age. A time of chivalry, sorcery and gods." |
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Track Titles - Dreams of Avalon, The Search for the Holy Grail, Lessons with Merlin, The Love of Guinevere, The Sleeping King, The Enchantment, Arthur's Destiny, The Fragile Flame |
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Just click on the hilighted track above if you'd like to hear what the music sounds like. |
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Available as Cassette or CD. To order click here. |
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| Bardsey Island on the cover again - the fourth album on which the island appears! My inspiration for this came from the book Journey to Avalon by Chris Barber & David Pykitt, which I found fascinating reading. If you're looking for a comprehensive Arthurian Web Site I don't think you can do much better than Arthur:The Matter of Britain there are limks there to everything from serious essays to Monty Python sketches. |
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A Review of Dreams of Avalon which appeared in -
Imagine a marriage between Jon Mark's floating keyboards (without his characteristic warmth) and the darkness of Meg Bowles' space music. Wrap that combination in very subdued Celtic overtones (barely there sometimes) and you approach this album. The above words really don't do a good job of describing Mike's music on this release, but I had to start somewhere! I could also say that I think Mike is the most promising ambient keyboard artist I've heard in a long time. Dreams of Avalon is not Mike's debut - not by a long shot. He has more than a few albums under his belt over in the UK. But he is a virtual unknown here in the States. However, if this CD finds its way into the right radio programmers' hands, that won't be the case for long. Dreams of Avalon is a musical portrait, of sorts, of the story of Klng Arthur (per the song titles). Unlike the aforementioned Jon Mark' s Celtic-inspired works (Land of Merlin, A Celtic Story, and the classic The Standing Stones of Callanish), Dreams of Avalon is much darker, more somber, and more laced in mystery. Musically, the two artists are somewhat alike in their approach to layering their keyboards and mixing notes, chords, and washes into a seamless sonic portrait. However, even a cursory listen to this CD reveals how different the two artists are. The first strains of the title cut bring to mind images that are steeped in mystery and even darkness. Not noir-like darkness, but darkness of fantasy and ageless tales. On the next song,The Search For The Holy Grail" Mike uses synth chorus to bring a mood of spirituality to the song, while the other keyboards convey a mood of wandering. "Lessons with Merlin" comes close to a song that mirrors Jon Mark while still being different. The two artists exist in different places on the continuum. Mike' s music is less personally reflective and more imagistic in a guided sense. It's less ambiguous.It's also less"pretty" (although I loathe using such an arbitrary word as that). It's not that Dreams of Avalon isn't beautiful to listen to (it is). But it's more somber and less restful emotionally. What I liked about the CD was the edge it has. You can almost picture the fog, draped on the hills of Ancient England. I'd love to see Mike tackle a musical impression of Lord of the Rings - he really has the chops for it! I'll try to review some of Mike's other CDs in coming issues because this is just the tip of his iceberg. He is a great composer of electronic ambient music and someone I suspect you'll be hearing more of as word spreads about him in the States. For lovers of richly textured electronic music, that would be good news indeed. Review by Bill Binkelman 1998 Wind and Wire Reprinted with kind permission
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