Kitaro, Dream Full Album Zip
Christal Rasband
Their work together on the project had actually begun at long distance: Kitaro would mail tapes or send faxes on ideas for the album from his mountaintop home in Colorado to wherever Anderson was at the time.
Dream is a concept album, even if most of it is instrumental. There's of course a lot of keyboards and you have toreach the third track to listen to Jon's voice. "Symphony of the Forest" is a perfect intro. Not properly an ouverture, butsets the mood which is then carried on by "Misterious Island". I don't know what the concept is about, really. The tworecurring elements are the "Lady Of Dreams" and the "Island".What I know is that the album is very good. In particular, the guitar of Hiroshi Araki sounds very Floydian. The riff inthe middle part of "Lady of Dreams" which also features an ascending sequence of chords similar to "In The Flesh",could have found a place on "The Wall".Add to this the vocals of Jon Anderson at his best, even if on three tracks only, backed by his daughter Deborah.In brief, this is for what I know the most symphonic album of this keyboards mastermind. One of my favorites at thetime it was released and still the one that I prefer in the huge Kitaro's discography. social review comments Review Permalink
Posted Monday, April 10, 2017 Review this album Report (Review #1709707)
Noticing that Kitaro was added to Prog archives recently, I recalled this album that I first heard years ago which features Jon Anderson on vocals. Being an absolute Yes maniac, I am always interested in hearing anything that a Yesmember is involved in. Giving it a more serious listen now, I am enjoying it more than I remembered.Since Dream is so far my only experience of Kitaro's music I cannot relate it to his other works, but it can be compared tosome of Jon Anderson's solo stuff as well as with Anderson's contributions to the works of Mike Oldfield and Vangelis.One year before the release of Dream in 1992, Yes had released Union - an album that included some "New-Age"-likepieces such as Angkor Wat and Take The Water To The Mountain. These numbers might also give you an idea of what thevocal tracks on Dream sound like.Anderson wrote the lyrics and contributed lead vocals to three tracks on this otherwise instrumental album. The vocaltracks are Lady of Dreams, Agreement, and Island of Life. His voice can also be heard on Dream Of Chant, which is as thetitle implies a chant. My favourite track is Agreement.Dream is a nice addition to a comprehensive Jon Anderson and extended Yes-related collection. social review comments Review Permalink
Posted Thursday, April 13, 2017 Review this album Report (Review #1710203)
Jeff Kaliss has featured and reviewed classical, jazz, rock, and world musics and other entertainment for the San Francisco Chronicle and a host of other regional, national, international, and web-based publications. He holds an MFA in Creative Writing from San Francisco State University, is a published poet, and is the author of I Want to Take You Higher: The Life and Times of Sly & the Family Stone (Backbeat Books) and numerous textbook and encyclopedia entries, album liner notes, and festival program notes.
I began by asking Suzanne if she had difficulty finding a recording contract for her first album, given that she was attempting to sell contemporary instrumental compositions, which even today are regarded as an uncommercial proposition.
"The essential difference is that in the record business in Japan they listen. At every appointment I went to, there were no telephones, and people just sat quietly in a room listening to the music. Seven Waves finally had an American release in 1984 on Atlantic Finnadar, and then I did The Velocity Of Love on RCA. These albums were licensed because I felt that the labels didn't understand my music, and Private Music, to whom I signed for the Neverland album, is the first label to which I have given up ownership of the master tapes."
"It's true that the emphasis of the label is changing now from Peter Baumann's original vision, but certainly in the beginning, when he was the mentor, it was just perfect for me. I met Peter when he first came to New York after leaving Tangerine Dream; he called me up and asked if I knew about a particular new drum machine, so we originally got together in my studio just as electronic people talking about equipment. He started Private Music in about 1983 or '84 and I offered him The Velocity Of Love, but he did not take it because it is not a digital recording. Everybody had a thing about digital then, as if it made any difference! I had recorded the album to the highest quality, but chose analogue because of the sound. Now I use both media, and on Hotel Luna I used two machines, one digital and one analogue, because certain sounds are better on digital and some sound better on analogue. Anyway, then I did a live concert at The Roxy theatre in Los Angeles, Peter came to watch and afterwards he wanted me for his label."
Michel Huygen was delighted to hear about Suzanne's genuine love for his country, and her revelation that she too has worked with Vangelis, with whom Neuronium collaborated back in 1981 for broadcast on Spanish television, made his day. Suzanne: "Vangelis plays on The Velocity Of Love album. I met him in London in about 1984 or '85 at Nemo Studios and I think he's just great! Our collaboration was actually suggested by a producer whom I'd worked with who was doing a commercial with Vangelis, so I met him and found we had a lot in common."
"I did that because I saw the black and white keyboard as an inappropriate interface. With the Buchla synthesizer, I used a touch keyboard, and when I did my early live performances I could have 20 different things happen and not just one note. It was a more powerful situation with the touch keyboard, because the piano was limited to just notes. It took a long time for me to come to the synthesis of this new language of electronics and my heritage, which is the piano. I'm definitely coming back to my roots, but it's hard for me to get a perspective on what I do. I try not to judge it, or even understand it right away. All that I know is that my next album is very much focused on the piano, building upon what I began a few years ago with Pianissimo, even though Hotel Luna wasn't a very piano-oriented album."
"I closed my recording studio in New York, and am quite happy about not having a studio now; first of all because I've been travelling a lot. I needed to do that because I'd been in New York for nineteen years. Now I just have my touring gear set up in a home studio environment, so it's not really suitable for final recording. Secondly, there's no financial incentive for having your own studio, because I like to work with the optimum capability of whatever is available. If I can get that by going to an excellent outside studio, then that's what I'll do, although some albums don't require that, like Pianissimo which was recorded direct to DAT. I wish life was always that simple!"
"When I do a large tour, I can go all the way, and this involves synchronised video and large screen projections. The SMPTE time code from the video drives the sequencer, and I play along with a live percussion player and a woodwind player who usually plays both acoustic and electronic woodwind. It's true that in my extravaganza MIDI electronic days I was known on occasion to wear a dress which lights up and follows the music! Since I've done the album Pianissimo, I'm as happy doing a solo piano concert; that's the other extreme of my concert ideas. In between, there are a variety of things.
"One thing I like to do at the moment is use the Yamaha MIDI piano, so I'm playing acoustic piano, but also controlling a patch that I've designed to go with that particular piece. Here at the Klemdag festival I'm just going to be using the M1R and the piano, because it lends itself perfectly to this kind of simple interaction. In performance you can limit the ranges of each part of the sound and easily control it. Another possibility is combining that with other live players. Since my next album will be with orchestra and piano, I imagine that my live performances will start involving live orchestra."
"I still use the Roland Super JX for analogue sounds, and for sampling I've gotten rid of my Synclavier and AudioFrame, and now use the Roland S770, though I don't use the sounds that come with it. Its main role is during my heavy-duty electronic performances, because I have sounds from generations ago stored in there that were originally made on the Buchla and other instruments, sampled into the Synclavier and then transferred to the AudioFrame, or whatever. The same sounds just keep on travelling! I never really used the Synclavier on my albums, because I didn't like the sound; the sampling was the best thing about it. I did most of that on my commercial productions, but for my earlier work most of the sounds were created on the Buchla, which I still have, although I haven't fired it up in a long time, and it's now under my bed!"
Since the time of this interview, Suzanne has kept in touch and work is progressing on her new album Dream Suite, as indicated in a recent letter: "I'm planning to record the new album in early April 1994 in Moscow, with the Young Russian Orchestra. I'm very excited about this, but it is, needless to say, taking immense amounts of preparation. I considered coming to London to record, but like the idea of Russia. My label is trying to convince me about London, however."
While touring Germany with his group in 1972, he met Klaus Schulze, the drummer for Tangerine Dream, who introduced him to synthesisers and electronic rock. Kitaro subsequently embarked on a solo career, and caught the attention of the New Age community when he released his first album, Astral Voyage, in 1978. The synthesiser became his instrument of choice, allowing him to create a soaring form of electronic rock, enriched by the sounds of Asia.
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