MARKS

The debut of Dutch progressive rock group Alquin is one of the better classic prog albums from Holland. Heavily influenced by both Soft Machine, Pink Floyd and perhaps other rock acts with wind-sections Alquin came up with a nice blend of styles of their own. On the the debut Alquin also has some nice humor in the music and song-titles which add to the pleasant & playful listening experience. Alquin's sound is made up of organ's and piano's on the background, a jazzy rhythmical section, a melodic guitar style and nice sax and flutes by Ottenhof and Tarenskeen. Alquin makes little use of reverbs and echoes, which gives the music a Canterbury-like dryness to it. The diversity of the first side is very exciting, the band engages in many different themes, styles and atmospheres. Along the way we get some jazz-rock, some psychedelic passages, slightly dreamy passages, some playfulness and moments of subtle beauty. Only the last part of side one (with the violin experimentation) is a bit boring in my opinion. On the second side Alquin shows a different face; with an extended Pink Floyd like symphonic/spacey intro of 'I wish I could' and emotional song-writing & performance during the second halve of the track. The song-writing on the next tracks proves to be effective and the instrumental ending track leaves us with a good feeling.

Conclusion. The slightly naive & wild experimentation on side one and the song-writing on side two are winners for me and I can give this record the big three-and-a-halve rating. Recommended to fans of eclectic prog, jazz-rock and classic progressive music in general.