DAVE SINCLAIR

A collection of music that is almost entirely piano. There is flute, cymbals and quiet strings on some of the songs, briefly. The rest of the music consists purely of acoustic piano so yeah don't expect Progressive Rock. That being said the songs are given nice little style/touches so they work well together and are all lovely tunes. Additionally most of the songs are pretty calm so don't expect anything insane, just pretty piano music like the title/album cover suggest.

Overall this is a nice album that I think people interested in an instrumental piano album would enjoy a lot more then me. I do think it offers a nice insight into Dave Sinclair's writing style which is worthy of note since he wrote many of Caravans longest numbers so it's not worthless to fans of Progressive Rock.

Nice solo album by the keyboard player & founding member of the legendary Canterbury band Caravan.

Don't expect any hyper-dexterous instrumental prowess, however, like it might come from, let's say, "Emerson, Lake & Palmer". What we have here are a bunch of fine, very well sung and arranged, piano ballads (like the first two songs) alternating with some more complex tracks bringing progressive ambiance in the sometimes unconventional harmony, a few unexpected rhytmic signature changes, and room for soloing (as, for example, "If I Run").

"On My Own" is the weak spot to my ears, a rather bland jazzy piece of tropical enchantment. The hot moment for the Canterburian fan may be "Home Again", a suite containing the clearly outstanding leading guitar by Andy Latimer, from Camel.

The vocals by David are good (if somewhat strained at some point) and collaborate in a very effective way to define the Caravan-like sound that one cannot less than expect from a record like this.

I stumble upon this album by pure chance. But I had liked the song Sad Eyes when a friend post it for me on my Facebook page, so I was curious about Dave Sinclair´s solo album. I´m not very big fan of the so called "Canterbury Sound" and I´m no expert on this kind of music. All I knew is that Sinclair was the keyboards player of the classic line up of Caravan. And I was stunned by the big list of major players and singers that give a hand on this CD: Robert Wyatt (vocals & cornet, ex Soft Machine and Matching Mole), Jimmy Hastings (flute, clarinet and sax, from Caravan), Andy Latimer (Camel), Annie Haslam (Renaissance), Barbara Gaskin and Dave Stewart (Stewart & Gaskin) and so on, even Morgan Fisher from Mott The Hoople is credit here. So I guess I was expecting a very strong prog album.

But really what you get is a very laid back, soft sound with celtic and even pop overtones. Almost all songs are very short (only Between Us and Sad Eyes break the 4 minute mark) and there are very few solos. Needless to say, everything is very well done and produced, but I guess some people will not like the lack of bolder. jazzier and longer instrumental parts. Of my part I liked Stream very much: it is a peaceful and pleasant sounding piece of music, if not too original. The choice of singers was a fine move, as the performances are also spotless. I enjoyed it form beginning to end. there are no weak tracks. Highlights are the opener Sad Eyes and the 7 minute Between Us, the only one where the instrumental parts have a little more freedom to fly.

Rating: 3.5 stars. Not really essential, but a fine record anyway. For the ones like me, who can appreciate subtle and very melodic music.