QUINOA

Just like "Green Desert","Quinoa" was a transitional album for TD. Paul Haslinger had just left the band and just like in 1973 when TD was suddenly reduced to a duo of Edgar Froese and Chris Franke,they were once more down to just two people,this time Edgar and his son Jerome who had joined the band two years earlier. But unlike in 73,this time they decided to stay a duo and "Quinoa" was the earliest example of the two of them forging ahead with TD in duo format. But only the title track is from 1992,the other two tracks are later additions from 96 for "Voxel Ux" and in the case of "Lhasa",no year is given. "Quinoa" is a return to the epic TD days of yore,something that by this point they hadn't done since "Live Miles" in 87. And at 28 minutes it's something of a mega epic,and it's definitely not the least interesting they have done in this area. This being 92 they were already feeling tentatively towards the techno/dance forms that so much of the future of TD music would feature,only less solidified. But "Quinoa" is undoubtedly an interesting piece of music,in the familiar TD epic vein with one long piece of several sections leading into one another,much like a string quartet or a symphony. TD have always worked with a classical compositional structure for their epics and "Quinoa" wanders through several musical landscapes before it reaches it's destination 28 minutes later,and I think it stands up well with TD's more famous epics of the 70's and 80's,it's almost a synthesis of old and new TD,the aestethic of the past meeting the tentative future. In turns hypnotic and minimalistic,then expansive,it covers a lot of ground so those 28 minutes seem to fly by. A great updating of the classic TD epic for the 90's. "Voxel Ux" is perhaps less interesting,but that's probably due to it's length of "only" 12 minutes. It's not allowed to expand and evolve the way "Quinoa" is,but it's a nice enough piece,just not particularly outstanding in any noticable way. As for "Lhasa",that was part of what TD called the "Tibetan Cycle" at the time,a much larger musical project that was yet to be released. It has since been released as "The Seven Letters From Tibet" and "Lhasa" is to be found on that album under the title "The Long Distance Blue" and it's rightful place is definitely within the concept of that album,it's a bit of a fish out of water on "Quinoa",my advice is to skip it,with just "Voxel Ux" and "Quinoa" the album is still 40 minutes long,longer than many of the classic TD albums of the 70's and 80's,after all. This album is worth getting for the title track alone and along with it you get a nice appetizer in the shape of "Voxel Ux". Not an essential TD album but definitely worth getting for the dedicated fan,a casual TD listener would be wiser to get the acknowledged classics of the 70's and 80's before shelling out for this,though.