1984

After a series of albums that combined differing approaches with similar instruments, Anthony Phillips decided to try something different. His albums, The Geese and the Ghost, Wise After the Event, Sides, and Private Parts and Pieces were mostly guitar based, mostly acoustic, well respected, yet commercially irrelvent. 1984 rolled around, and Anthony tried what Rick Wakeman did with his 1984 album: doing a tribute to George Orwell's classic tome 1984. It's comparable to Wakeman's because Anthony used mostly electronic keyboards, synthesizers, and percussion to create his work. While Rick's was succesful, I prefer Phillip's album as it's instrumental nature allows you to make the associations with the book in your mind, instead of having them dictated to you by lyrics. Plus, it's a one of a kind work for Phillips: almost every other release after this was acoustic and guitar based, or piano based.

The rhythms and melodies are somewhat simple on this album but Phillips does produce melodies. Some keyboardists would be content to simply churn out nothing but electronic noise, but being a gifted melodician, Phillips churns out great electronic melodies. In fact, being relatively limited on the keyboards compared to his guitar abilities almost forces him to focus on strong melodies as opposed to flashy work. The result is an endlessly listenable, almost always enjoyable electronic feast for the ears. The re-release has a second disc of related material.