IN THE LAND OF THE RISING SUN

Renaissance's Tuscany album - seeing Annie Haslam and Michael Dunford reunite after leading different Renaissance incarnations during the mid-1990s, with Terrance Sullivan joining the lineup too along with more recent musical collaborators (Rave Tesar having been especially close to Annie) - was recorded in 1998, but it took a little while for it to be released, and before Giant Electric Pea was able to issue it domestically, it crept onto the market in Japan in 2000. This got enough of a reaction to merit a tour in support of it, and thus In the Land of the Rising Sun came about, capturing a March 2001 concert.

Song selections come from the albums running from Ashes Are Burning to A Song For All Seasons, plus of course a lot of dips into Tuscany and even a Mike Oldfield cover (Moonlight Shadow) and a couple of Annie Haslam solo tracks - Precious One and Ananda, both from the Dawn of Ananda album which Michael Dunford had guested on. The band do an admirable job of adapting their sound such that all this disparate material, spanning decades, all broadly sounds like it belongs together, and Annie's voice has held up magnificently. As on Tuscany, Michael Dunford concentrates on acoustic guitar, which helps to inject a somewhat folky air to things which sits nicely beside the classic Renaissance symphonic style.

It's not the Carnegie Hall concert, but it's still a magnificent musical journey from a mature band, led by talent (Dunford and Haslam) who are both reconciled to their past and updating their sound for the future. This incarnation of the group would fade away shortly after this release, before reconfiguring and reuniting again, eventually yielding the Symphony of Light album (during the recording of which Dunford would pass away). Whilst Tuscany was a fine test run for this iteration of Renaissance, it's In the Land of the Rising Sun where they really show what they could do, and it's magnificent.