AQUA

When I purchased this album in the 70s, I was looking for something different. It was just the cover design that caught my attention, but after one spin up I gave it to a friend that I knew was inside this kind of electronic music. After 35 years, I found myself walking nightly in a desert city during the summer, with Aqua in my mp3 reader and I have totally changed my mind. 4 minutes of relaxing water sounds are useful to put your mind in the right mood, so to be ready when the spacey keyboards come. Water-like sounds continue moving from one ear to the other overlapping the relaxing keyboard base (mostly square waves). You can't probably play it while you are driving on a motorway, but any quiet environment is the right place. Even if water (Aqua is the latin word for water) is typical of planet Earth, you can easily project your mind to the deep space. This music is made of sensations. It's a freefall. At least until minute 12, when some dissonant sounds in the background and an electronic helicopter add some dramaticity to the atmosphere. But it's just a spot. It suddenly goes back to the deep space, then water returns and after some more dissonancies, closes the piece in the same way it was started.

Panorphelia opens with a loop of windy noise on which an electronic bass gives some rhythm. Immediately a mellotron comes. The sound and the melody are quite Floydian, just a bit more electronic. I think the influence of Early Pink Floyd is evident on this track. As the previous one, it closes as it started.

From wikipedia: NGC 891 is an edge on unbarred spiral galaxy about 30 million light-years away in the constellation Andromeda. It was discovered by William Herschel . This track is exactly what you can expect from the title: pure space music. The electronic sound on the base reminds to the "Forbidden planet"'s soundtrack. A jet flies over your head, a car runs on your left while your starship moves to Andromeda. Definitely a TD track. I don't want to be heretic, but I think Pete Bardens was inspired in some way by this track when he composed "Seen one Earth".

Upland has the same structure of the first two tracks, but the keyboard now sounds like a church organ. You are still in the space, even if the keyboards make a bit more of melody. Only during the last minute some stranger sounds override the organ.

I don't want to compare this album to TD. At the time I listened to it for the first time, I didn't know anything of them.

If you like travelling between the galaxies, this album is for you.