TALE FROM A LONG FORGOTTEN KINGDOM

Insufferable new age-ish muzak laced in with heroic fantasy, make this album a real dud!! The kind of music tailored for people playing way too much D&D games beit in their living room or intthe woods with the ruins of an old house serving as dungeon. This is the kind of stuff Eno missed upon when he did his Ambient Music series: Ambient Music for Old Castle Ruins.......;-)

All kidding aside , this mid-80's album is filled with boring stuff (however filled with analog Kbs and some acoustic instruments) rates as a second rate Oldfield or third rate JM Jarre! If you really want to indulge in some of that music , I may advise you to look (and hear) early Bo Hanson material. Much meatier (even for the vegetarians) and all together much better executed.

Beautiful music to chill out to in my experience.

Having only recently discovered Gandalfs music by his association with Steve Hackett on Gallery of Dreams, and finding something very appealing in that I decided to investigate Gandalfs canon in a bit more depth (albeit warily) as this sort of New Ageish music can sink to pointless noodling and tuneless ambience (Hello Tangerine Dream).

I was pleasantly surprised to find not only the perfect chill out tunes, but also damn fine melodies interwoven into place with some excellent musicianship.

Highly recommended if you want something to relax to at the end of a hectic day

The sacred esoteric formula

The first thing that struck me about Gandalf's Tale From A Long Forgotten Kingdom is how much the sleeve picture of this album reminds of those for Pendragon's albums (from 1991's The World to 2001's Not Of This World). The music on this album is however not very close to that of Pendragon except maybe in some minor incidental aspects (if you want something more towards Neo-Prog you would do better to look into Gandalf's collaboration with Tracy Hitchings on the album To Our Children's Children).

For this album, multi-instrumentalist Gandalf was on his own again (except for some fleeting wordless vocals by Pippa Armstrong). Comparing with his previous albums I would say that this one is perhaps closest to the debut Journey To An Imaginary Land, but the present album is noteworthy in bringing in many elements of what might be called World-Music and New-Age respectively. But thankfully, he still has one foot in Rock music.

This bright and colourful music is mostly soft and dreamy and Gandalf concentrates here on atmospheres and moods more so than on creating melodies, yet he still manages to make varied and pleasant instrumental music. I was previously familiar with The River Of Realization from the very good live recording Gallery Of Dreams Live (part 1) and it must be pointed out that the live version is much better than this studio version. The River Of Realization (part 2) is nonetheless the best track on Tale From A Long Forgotten Kingdom. Generally, the better tracks of this album come at the end with On The Peacock's Wings and the closer Back Home. The least good track is the longest The Nawan Path which I think is just too long for its own good. The Sacred Esoteric Formula is also a bit too esoteric for me.

Tale From A Long Forgotten Kingdom is by no means Gandalf's best album, but it is the last of the albums that make up his best and most interesting early period, and it is a fitting inclusion in a collection that holds his first four albums.

I bought my first Gandalf albums to use them as background music in my massage studio. So I was very surprised to find this artist on this site. Of course, those albums that have lyrics and vocals somehow qualify as prog. But I was surprised.

Tale From A Long Forgotten Kingdom is purely instrumental, and it is somewhere between not heaven and hell, but Prog and New Age. It is difficult to use in the studio because of the drums, but not something I would listen to in my free time or in the car. Well, the bathtub might be a good place to have it for background music.

It is difficult to single out one or the other track. None of it is bad, but unfortunately there is also none of it really standing out. Everything is pretty average, but luckily not boring. So I'll have to go for 3 stars for an album that doesn't leave a distinct impression.