Showing posts with label Edison's Children. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Edison's Children. Show all posts

Saturday, 31 August 2019

Washed Away (Edison's Children, 2019)

This is the only song included in Edison's Children's fourth CD titled "The Disturbance Fields". It's a very long suite (some 68 minutes) divided into 14 movements and several sub-movements too. Still, like most of this band's songs, it's as fresh as a mountain spring. Edison's Children came out with their new release in 2019 just in time to take their own part of the Apollo 11 50th anniversary celebrations and with a very good reason, as Rick Armstrong, the son of Neil, plays guitars and even bass guiitars on many movements here. Of course, Edison's Children is mainly the brainchild of Marillion's bassist Pete Trewavas and his American friend Eric Blackwood, a multi-instrumentalist a special FX Technician in many films and TV shows. As we already knew, both Eric and Pete are in love with the most dramatic and sci-fi oriented side of Pink Floyd and this is the background sound you'll find in "Whashed Away".

Warning: an emotional hurricane is approaching!

But there's more than this. Each movement has its own pace and mood, describing the approaching, the fury and the aftermath of a natural disaster. And after all the band should know about that, having suffered both hurricane and earthquake during their previous studio album sessions. Dark and majestic, this suite lines up arcane electronic movements, fresh acoustic ballads and rockier passages, all well written and performed. Changes and solos are each in its right place and the listener never gets bored, despite the track's huge duration time. If you like spacey moods, sweet melodies and sharp riffs, listen to this...

Wednesday, 5 February 2014

The Awakening (Edison's Children, 2011)

Edison's Children are a very interesting collaboration between Pete Trewavas of Marillion and Eric Blackwood, an open minded artist from New York. I immediately liked their first album, "In The Last Waking Moments...", a concept based on a sci-fi canvas. "The Awakening" is a two part epic, featuring three other Marillion members as guest musicians: Ian Mosley, Steve Hogarth and Mark Kelly. This is probably the proggest track of the album and for sure the most intricated one, including many themes from the whole album, a highly creative bass line and a speldid Eric Blackwood's guitar solo dominating the second part of the suite, titled "Slow Burn".

Eric's wife, Wendy Farrell, provided this beautiful cover photo.

What I really like in this song is its emotional side, its intense suspended atmosphere and the vast range of acoustic and electronic sounds  it contains. When you play slow and ethereal music the risk is to get humdrum... well, I can't imagine something less monotonous than this track and its insensible crescendo from the dark intro to the melting and choral finale is one of the best things I listened to during the 2010s. Great. Simply great (IMHO).