SWF SESSIONS, VOLUME 5

A live studio recording which finds me in a very bad mood after previous reviews. An entirely instrumental affair and quite laid back and 'of its time'. After the last bunch of garbage I've reviewed, 'Kollektiv' gets off to a good start.

The flutes are nice , sounding reverbed to bits, with lots of treated guitars and a laid back 'Gong' like bass that makes me wish I was on a beach having a nice bottle of beer rather than being stuck in Scotland in February.

Disappointingly some electric guitar rears its ugly head and all of a sudden things get pretty heavy and I want to leave my picnic on the beach and scamper off back home.

The whole album is quite similar in many ways to 'Set the Controls' by Floyd, with an atmosphere and technique that is comparable but is nothing special at all. 'Gong' fans may enjoy, but it's rubbish really.

Towards the end things do get horribly 70's and cheesy in the form of the 20 minute 'Gageg' with it's exasperatingly repetitive theme, which lowers this to a 2 star rating. I'd gladly never hear this again. God! what a night of reviewing!