Dyonisos - Dyonisos

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Dyonisos - Dyonisos

Artist:	Dyonisos
Title:	Dyonisos
Label:	Mals MALS 113
Length(s):	75 minutes
Year(s) of release:	2006
Month of review:	[07/2008]

Line up

Dan Cowan - all instruments

Tracks

1)	Prolog 3.42
2)	Moanalua Gardens 5.50
3)	Keahiakahoe 3.49
4)	Sunset On The Ridge 3.41
5)	Omega Moonlight 1.50
6)	We Will Never Leave This Place 6.24
7)	I'm Ready Now 4.34
8)	The Phone Call 5.14
9)	Haiku 7.51
10)	Come Along For The Ride 4.55
11)	Total Eclipse 4.21
12)	Crossing The Rainbow Bridge 3.29
13)	Wantok Payback 4.31
14)	The Guitar On The Hill 5.28
15)	The Mr. Hagen Show 3.38
16)	Juxtaposition 1.19
17)	Makakilo Sky 6.00

Summary

The music

Even though the artwork of this release has all the tell-tale signs of electronic music, it is actually a concept album of a progressive persuasion. However, the spacey imaging does refer to the science fiction type story of the album. The instrumental opening might still make the impression that this would be a largely electronic affair. Things start of decently with the second track, though, putting up a style that's somewhere in between Pink Floyd and Roger Waters solo work (but don't tell 'em I wrote that, they might hate me for it). The mumbling style of speakingly singing helps in creating the effect, but there's more, although, obviously, there won't be any Gilmour guitar bits. The attempts at them are pretty worthwhile, though. Accidently, the sound of Cowan's voice is closer to Colin Blunstone's, than Waters' really.

As time progresses the cracks in the veneer that might have been expected from a one man outfit appear. The most notable musically -yes, here I go again- is being caused by the boxed drums, too audible on some of the tracks, once again spoiling the effect. Another, of a more technical kind, is -I'm sorry, but I have to say this- a pretty stupid one: even though the tracks run over into another, there are these one second gaps between the tracks. These cause the music to suddenly stop, to continue just a bit later. I tried multiple players, so that can't have been it. Ba-a-a-ad.

Like with latter day Pink Floyd some of the compositions are so accessible that they are pretty poppy. These tracks diminish the impact of the whole, in my opinion. Both tracks six and seven are of the type, creating what might best be called a dip in the album. Apart from that, where I might see some (commercial) merit in recording radio friendly songs for PF, I can find no such justification for this release.

As the album progresses Cowan starts singing a bit more, moving away from the near spoken vocals Waters employs. This is accompanied by a somewhat more open sound, less daunting. This drags the sound into the direction of Tony Carey/Pink Project material, still retaining the progressive feel though, thus closer to the Floyd than the Carey. And just for measure a bit of the atmosphere of Bowie's Major Tom is thrown in, obviously associated with the album's subject matter.

Conclusion

Despite the fact that progressive music is mostly an amateur affair, the level of a great many of the releases can keep up easily with releases by professional bands. And I'm pretty much opposed to handing out points for effort: if the end result isn't there, that's it. Still Cowan tempts me on this one. Trying to pull of the sort of album he did on his own is too much, really. But he got pretty close, did so well with the means available. This combined with the large majority of the tracks on this album being plain good (3, 4, 8, 9, 10, 13, to name the best) I'm pretty happy with this album. Dan's achievement on this album deserves the highest of praise, especially on the synths, vocals and guitar.