BRUFORD: GRADUALLY GOING TORNADO

Those who are familiar with drummer Bill Bruford will expect high quality prog - indeed, all things I've heard with Bruford are exceptional, including this album, 'Gradually Going Tornado' - a personal favourite, more so than the previous studio album 'One of a Kind'. First up, Jeff Berlin is a Bass player first and fore-most, and one of the best I've heard, but he's not a great vocalist, even if his singing on 4 of the tunes on this LP doesn't (shouldn't) detract from the album's appeal. Bruford's drumming seems a little restrained on this album, but he still puts in tremendous effort, driving each composition along justifiably, Dave Stewart does his usual top-notch keyboarding, even throwing in some fuzz-organ solos on 2 pieces - Berlin's bass show-case 'Joe Frazier', and the lengthy (square root of) 'Q.E.D.', which harkens back to his previous band National Health - of which he (Stewart) stole one of his own riffs and re-worked it into the closing instrumental epic 'Lands End', including former Northettes Barbara Gaskin and Amanda Parsons on their usual 'la la la' vocals - definate Canterbury flavour. The remaining instrumental track is the lovely, reflective tune, 'Palewell Park', featuring only piano and fretless bass, and oddly enough, it was written by Bruford. Of the vocal tracks, 'Age of Information' kind of starts off mainstream-like but has a really good middle section, 'Gothic 17' is awesome - Stewart's icy keyboards supplying night-marish themes to this intense song. 'The Sliding Floor' is a busy, hyper-active number that jumps all over the place, with great lyrics and singing, tight and complex, and (the unknown) John Clarke has got to be Allan Holdsworth in disguise (not really) but his playing style and sounds are surely similar. 'Plans for J.D.' is probably the most standard track on the album, but pleasant never-the-less. A truly excellent album.