OCEANWORLD

A sticker on the front cover mentiones this: "Unrealesed original 1977 recordings featuring pre-Steve Hackett, pre-Hawkwind, ex-Enid". Well, at least this should appeal to some progheads I presume ...?! The most prominent member on this CD is Nick Magnus, once embellishing The Steve Hackett Band with his wide range of vintage keyboards (Mellotron!!). On most of the five compositions Nick delivers varied and pleasant keyboard work: jazzy play on the Fender Rhodes electric piano, swinging notes from the exciting Hohner D6 clavinet and nice work on the Vox String Thing and Mini Korg 7005. Guitar player Mark Easton often evokes a certain Stephen Hackett (flowing, melodic and frequent use of the volume pedal), especially in the titletrack. In Some Like It Crunchy fiery electric guitar is followed by wonderful strings and a long and exciting synthesizer solo, accompanied by acoustic rhythm-guitar ("did anyone say Cinema Show?"). The final part delivers great guitar and pleasant clavinet runs. That clavinet is also omnipresent in the tracks Little Finger and The Celebrated Court Jester (in both blended with beautiful strings and varied guitar work). The rhythm- section does a good job (Robbie Dobson once joined The Enid and Hawkwind), the musicians on this CD are outstanding! The running time is only 36 minutes but the mid- price eases this pain ...