A MEMORY OF OUR FUTURE

Before the appearance of and active attention garnered by this album on ProgArchives, I'd never heard of Hungary's László "Leslie" Mandoki, Dschinghis Khan, or the Mandoki Soulmates--this despite over 19 studio albums since the late 1970s! I do like his vision of collaborating with and eclectic array of world musicians.

1. Blood in the Water (6:54) Ian Anderson flute with a Jethro Tull-like motif with a UNITOPIA-like vocal and plenty of guest appearances on Hammond organ, piano, Motown rhythm guitar, supporting vocals, and uncredited violin all expertly pieced together like a BIG BIG TRAIN song. Great earworm of a lyric. I love the flute play throughout as well as the piano and Motown wah-wah guitar but the udu play is really the highlight. (13.5/15)

2. "Enigma of Reason" (10:06) opens like a Gospel spiritual set to some Caribbean-influenced World music. The multi- voice vocals that soon ensue sound like Peter Gabriel is in there. Matter of fact, this sounds very much like a Peter Gabriel world-consciousness song (or perhaps Robbie Robertson or Sting). The performances are all clean and gentle, I like them, but nothing here is earth-shatteringly impressive or worth writing home about despite the presence of Al Di Meola and Randy Brecker. My guess is that band leader Leslie Mandoki highly reveres the man his music emulates (Gabriel). (17.66667/20)

3. "The Wanderer" (5:04) the UNITOPIA/UNITED PROGRESSIVE FRATERNITY, BIG BIG TRAIN, PETER GABRIEL, ROBBIE ROBERTSON mélange of world music instruments continues--this one sounding the most like it comes straight off of Robbie's classic self-tiitled album from 1987. Gutsy mix for a proggy Americana song. (8.75/10)

4. "The Big Quit" (8:35) a scathing social commentary of the evils of modern times delivered over a UNITED PROGRESSIVE FRATERNITY array of instruments and sounds. Al Di Meola's flamboyant acoustic guitar shows the master still has it, but the vocal delivery and straightforward beat-it-in-your-face melody and structure just gets old fast. Every time I listen to this I find my attention wandering, brought back by Al's guitar or the occasional familiar/meaningful phrase. (17.3333/20)

5. "Devil's Encyclopedia" (5:48) more in-your-face group chant-singing and eclectic world instrumentation used to pound some music for the expression of some indictment of modern society. (17.3333/10)

6. "A Memory of My Future" (6:26) at this point in the album, the odu-driven world music rock palette is growing a little stale. Here we have Berklee College of Music bass department chair Steve Bailey's fretless bass, Bill Evans' and/or Suptertramp's John Helliwell's saxhophone, Randy Brecker's trumpets, Al Di Meola's mellifluous acoustic guitar runs, and Ian Anderson's matter-of-fact vocal adding spice to Leslie's hand percussives. It's all very impressive and impeccably well pieced together, just a little too monochromatic and mundane (which both feel like oxymorons for this kind of music). (8.75/10)

7. "I Am Because You Are" (4:32) Leslie singing in his Robbie Robertson-like voice over another world-infused Smooth Jazz instrumental palette. (8.75/10)

8. "My Share of Your Life" (7:48) 9. "Age of Thought" (4:38) 10. "Matchbox Racing" (6:56) 11. "We Stay Loud" (5:25) 12. "Melting Pot" (5:52)

Total Time 78:04

As much as I admire this kind of music (the stuff artists like Peter Gabriel, Mark Trueack, Marco Bernard, Galahad, Big Big Train, and many others seem compelled to make), I find it all quite homogenous and interchangeable, and, thus, rather boring. It is virtually impossible for me to listen to an album of this type of music straight through cuz I get so antsy and ready to move on to something different (something I like)--the music just drives me away! Plus, these artists are the type that like to put out these monstrously long albums. I've found that I can get into a 40 to 45 minute long album much more easily than I can anything longer than that. (Is my nervous system conditioned from the thousands of vinyl albums I owned in the 1970s--albums whose hand-held liner notes were as valuable to the listening experience as the expensive needle and speakers I had to deliver it?) It seems that my deep dive into the music of the 1960s and 1970s (Prog Folk, Jazz and Jazz-Rock Fusion) has left me even more allergic to these bombastic, manifesto- delivering world NeoProg artists and their preachy albums. I am VERY much of their globally-empathetic mindset and greatly admire their fortitude to carry on their missions, but I just don't find the music or messages necessary for me. This makes me sad for I know that these artists are working very hard, that they are very serious in their compositional discipline and artful expression of the conscience-raising messages that compel them to create, I'm just not there anymore. (I see Collapse as inevitable, the consume-and-throw-away mentality too inextricably ingrained within our species' deepest consciousness.) So I apologize. Perhaps these are the artists and albums that I should simply stay away from; I should just let others be, give them the freedom to travel their own path without having to face the negativity of a nay-sayer like me. Hmm. Something to seriously ponder.

As for the album rating for this review (which is going to remain, I fear, incomplete): I feel that this is good--very well- crafted, engineered, and performed--but it is not anything essential to anyone's progressive rock music collection, yet I feel it deserves high recommendations so that others can feel duly encouraged to try it out and decide for themselves. Kudos to Leslie and his gang of All-Stars; sorry it just doesn't click for me.