DYBLE LONGDON: BETWEEN A BREATH AND A BREATH

Although the collaboration Dyble-Longdon had begun previously to this venture, in BBT's album Grimspound, the question remained open: what will happen with these two working outside the frame (and the well-stablished aesthetics) of that band? Now the folkie element fed by the hands of Judy has its own right to blossom unbound, so, what then? Then the result is excellent, with musicians coming from BBT's ranks devoting themselves to the new sound.

In Astrologers we find a great balance of forces, with a delicate folk melody in the voice of Judy, and a stronger counterpart by David, who takes the side of the evil astrologers.

Obedience verges decidedly onto the folk end of the spectrum, with fabulous percussion and rhythm guitar jumping to high momentum near the end.

Tidying Away The Pieces makes the most of the timbric variety in the instruments of the guest players, like trumpet.

Between A Breath And A Breath is probably the most intertwined and intimate number here, with David opening the vocals.

France dresses a romantic fantasy by Judy with the according parisienne ambiance, accordion included.

Whisper brings the more "heavily symphonic" moment, with a gorgeous melody crying for (and getting) a lush development, including a nice pair of tasty electric guitar solos, and pastoral mini-interludes courtesy of Longdon's flute.

Heartwashing is a final open-heart showcase for Judy's romantic sensibility, with the guests contributing impressionistic harmonic background.

Judy Dyble sadly passed away in 2020. If there was a list of underrated female artists, I believe Judy would be on the top of it. She didn´t have a large discography, I believe mainly because in 1973 she decided instead of own solo career to support her husband´s work. After three decades she finally decided to start make music again. But to me quality has always been more important than amount of releases. If Judy is totally unknown to you, I highly recommend first Fairport Convention album, the only Trader Horne-album and her great solo album with Andy Lewis under name "Summer Dancing". In 2018 Judy collaborated with Big Big Train in one song, so I believe that led into this album. As in PJ Harvey´s and John Parish two collaboration albums, David wrote all the music and Judy wrote the words.

"Astrologers" starts album very softly and give quite good picture of the whole album. It´s something between folk prog and Pink Floyd after "Obscured by Clouds". Song and specially video of it are quite stereotypical today´s soft prog. In "Obedience" direction changes little better, it´s rhythmic folk piece. But we go back into ballads in "Tidying Away the Pieces" and that will continue the whole album. This song has beautiful melodies that could be in some Genesis album or maybe more into Peter Gabriel´s solo. The title song is only true pearl in this album: although it reminds a lot Wakeman-period of Yes with it´s mellotron, I really love it´s melody! "France" is two part suite. At first you think "aa, this is David´s Jethro-song", but soon it turns out to be also ballad with Floyd-influences, also some Kansas-influences in the last part. "Whisper" has great King Crimson-part in the end. "Heartwashing" is interesting mix of Miles Davis, Pink Floyd and King Crimson.

This album was quite disappointment to me when it came. Many listenings haven´t change my opinion. Of course it ´s good, perfectly produced and hard to imagine that it can irritate anybody, but that´s the main problem to me. I am not a fan of Big Big Train, but I expected with Judy David could have created something different. In "Summer Dancing" Judy and Andy Lewis made music together and I think that should have happened also in this album. Judy said in "Burning Shed"-pages that she wrote all the lyrics before she was diagnosed, but maybe she was too weak to take a part to the music making, who knows? It´s clear David has listened all the masterpieces of old prog and he can take fragments from them and change them of his own, but that´s all. I don´t hear any personality in his music. Also Judy´s singing is not as great in this album as her earlier, she sounds mostly very tired. "Earth Is Sleeping" would have been much better swan song from her. But I believe Big Big Train fans will enjoy this album.