THE STONES OF WISDOM

Interesting to see Gandalf here. He could be better labeled as New Age, and I guess his music won't please very many of average prog-lovers. To me, quite familiar with 'New Age Music' (a problematic term but is there any better one, to include various styles from Brian Eno to Vangelis and Tangerine Dream?), Gandalf represents 'middle-league': not as good as the forementioned or Andreas Vollenweider (jazzy harpist!), but clearly better than the awful stuff of Yanni or numerous extremely boring NewAgers emphasizing on the meditative, spiritual level. Judging from the cover, title and stupid track names (there is 'of' in almost all of them: 'Questions of the Heart', 'Morning of Peace', etc) you might expect "Stones of Wisdom" to be exactly that, meditative New Age with all its cliches. But it has more to offer. Instrumentation is rich but not pompous; Gandalf handles well both keyboards and guitars and there are 3 guest musicians. And even though the music HAS that spiritual and mystic feel (Stonehenge being the source of inspiration?), the album keeps its compositional interest all the way of the 75 minutes. Only few of the 19 tracks are boring and fail to add anything to the whole; mostly this is beautiful instrumental music that activates listener's imagination. Relaxating but not narcotic... at least to those who could think of listening New Age too.