CHIMERA

I really didn't know anything about this British keyboardist other than his debut "Chimera" gets a lot of praise so I picked this up several years ago. In the late seventies he would play with bands like BUDGIE, ALAN PARSONS PROJECT, CAMEL and Kate Bush but before all of this while living in South Africa he composed and arranged "Chimera". It's pretty much all Duncan but thankfully he was smart enough to hire a real drummer and his brother Gord would add some piano and violin but the rest is Duncan and man he can play the keyboard. He adds bass pedals and vocals as well.

Now after just reviewing REFUGEE's only album also from 1974 and being blown away by Patrick Moraz I don't feel Duncan is in the same league but if he's not he's just a step down. This is a keyboard album and while ELP did come to mind this very much feels like MacKay's own idea. Three long tracks beginning with "Morpheus" at 11 1/2 minutes and what a stew of sounds early on in this one as vocals join in. Sounds like clavinet at one point and we get a couple of calms as this plays out. An impressive start.

"12 Tone Nostalgia" is 8 1/2 minutes and includes some ELP bombast 3 minutes in but before that it's fairly laid back with piano leading. After the bombast we do get some depth with bass pedals and drums as the organ comes to the fore. The side long closer "Song For Witches" at 20 minutes is my favourite. I really like the samples to start of wind, thunder claps and rain, the perfect weather for witches. This almost lasts 3 minutes then a variety of keyboards dominates. Check out the piano at 11 1/2 minutes and we get some vocals on this one. A nice little drum solo around 18 minutes before nasty keyboard sounds rule.

A low 4 stars I'm just not big on keyboard driven albums for the most part and as I mentioned earlier hearing Patrick Moraz earlier didn't help. Still I gotta go 4 stars for this impressive debut.