PURE FANTASY

For some reasons, I begun replaying all my cassette collection in the past as I was quite bored with the sound of digital music which in my opinion was not quite ear-friendly and in a way disconnected me with my past experience listening most of music collection from analog source which mostly cassette. Hey, I could not afford to buy vinyl at that time; it's too expensive for a poor student like me. I started listening to my (approximately 800) cassettes since couple of months ago, including those that I got the CDs already. To me, listening to music from cassette creates unique nuance that is irreplaceable by any other form of recorded music as I was grown with cassettes as my main source of listening plus radio, of course!

I was stunned with the fact that I got this Pure Fantasy album by Barbara Thompson. By the time I purchased this was not, I thought, my cup of tea as I was more on progressive rock or contemporary jazz rock like Return to Forever. But now when I play this cassette this time .. Oh boy ..!! This is truly a gem from the past! By the time I purchased this cassette I was truly falling inlove with Marillion's Fugazi and Script for a Jester's Tear - a totally different kind of music! But now this this time, I can really enjoy this cassette collection. The cassette audio quality is still top notch! It's already 28 years of age but the quality is still excellent! One thing I love with cassette is that I am forced to listen to it and not doing skipping as I do with digital records.

The opening track Fields Of Flowers 4:38 blew me away at first listen as it has great flute- work by Barbara. I leaned that from wikipidea Barbara married to the world's great rock drummer Jon Hiseman of Colosseum fame. Jon's drumming work is also great here. I also notice the other great player Dave Ball who plays bass guitar - he is great in this album. I think most track in this album have great bass guitar work. The other great tracks that I love are Listen To The Plants 4:29 and also Kafferinya 3:28 - I love the great violin work.

Overall, this is a really good album with overall 3.5 stars rating. As I learned from Wiki, Barbara has been permanent member of Colosseum since 2004. Keep on proggin' ...!!

Peace on earth and mercy mild - GW