Brian's Rock Dreams and Voyage on Spotify

[MartcasterJunior]

Not sure if this is old news (but I don't remember reading it here), but Brian's Rock Dreams and Voyage albums were released on Spotify at the end of March. No additional tracks as far as I can see, but nice to have in the collection if you're an all-digital music streamer like me.

Cheers

Matt

[JimN]

Those two albums were released on one CD, maybe twenty years ago, by C5 (See For Miles). It was stated at the time that "Voyage" had had to be dubbed from vinyl because the tape could not be located.

[JimN]

I remembered it right. Here's the entry from my databse:

ROCK DREAMS / VOYAGE CD
BENNETT, Brian
1997 (compiled)
See For Miles/C5 (UK)
C5HCD 661 (stereo)

1. Rock Dreams (Introduction)
2. Rock & Roll Dreamer
3. Banja Booga
4. Rave On
5. Milwaukee Massacre
6. C'mon Everybody
7. Thunderbolt
8. Saturday Night Special
9. The Girls Back Home
10. Wallop
11. Farewell To A Friend
12. Drum Odyssey
13. Rock Dreams (Finale)

14. Voyage
15. Solstice
16. Chain Reaction
17. Pendulum Force
18. Air Quake
19. Ocean Glide
Copy of the "Voyage" LP also in collection. Bought November 1997 from Leo's Den (£12.99).

The amazing thing is that similar CDs are probably cheaper now in 2017 than this was in 1997.

[UlrichS]

For all the vinyl junkies, 'Voyage' has just been reissued on the Isle Of Jura Records label (ISLELP001).
Isle Of Jura is an Adelaide based label. For those interested in obtaining this LP compare prices, there are some strange people around.

[drakula63]

Ta.

Got 'Voyage' way back in the early '80s and still have it. Still sounds great.

Space disco! Brian Bennett blasted off to distant funky solar systems back in 1978, and that music is now being bounced down to vinyl for this handy reissue. Voyage - A Journey Into Discoid Funk has been hard to get a proper copy of for years and years, but this Isle Of Jura reissue is both readily available and carefully remastered for perfect sound quality.

Isle Of Jura's first LP reissue, the highly sought after 'Voyage - A Journey Into Discoid Funk' by Brian Bennett was originally released in 1978. This undisputed cosmic disco classic has been remastered from the original master tapes by Matt Colton and is pressed for the first time on heavyweight 180 Gram Vinyl.

I'm fairly sure Brian never saw it as a 'cosmic disco classic' - but I suppose that tag-line will help to sell it to all those young, cool DJs who weren't alive then! I am sure it was released in 1977, although there were TWO versions. Nice to know that it is Jura's FIRST LP reissue. Quite right too!



Press release
Isle Of Jura’s first LP reissue, the highly sought after ‘Voyage – A Journey Into Discoid Funk’ by Brian Bennett originally released in 1978. A cosmic disco classic completely re-mastered from the original master tapes by Matt Colton. 180g vinyl. Bootleged badly in the past, re-issued with love now, the sound quality is top notch!

Tracklist:

1. Voyage
2. Solstice
3. Chain Reaction
4. Pendulum Force
5. Air Quake
6. Ocean Glide

And speaking of DJs...


http://testpressing.org/2017/03/brian-b ... e-of-jura/

BRIAN BENNETT / VOYAGE - A JOURNEY INTO DISCOID FUNK / ISLE OF JURA

LISTEN / APIENTO / MAR 10, 2017

Ok the guys from Isle Of Jura got my interest from the off as their label name references cult UK band the KLF. I say cult but actually they had hits galore but have a search on Test Pressing and read up on the KLF if you don’t know much about them as they are thoroughly interesting and its good to see their world keep filtering through. Anyway, back to the review…

Brian Bennett, Voyage, Isle Of Jura, Test Pressing Review, The Shadows, Solstice

What can I say. This record is just ridiculous and I am so happy to see it getting a reissue as I couldn’t afford the price tag of an original copy. The record is a bit of an underground classic. Brian Bennett is best known as the drummer of The Shadows. As many of you know The Shadows may have inadvertently had a hand in the germination of hip-hop as they made a hit out of the instrumental track ‘Apache’ which was later covered by The Incredible Bongo Band and thus the B-Boy national anthem was born.

So this record is purely instrumental Disco Funk of the highest order and as you can imagine the drums are super great and really well recorded. Bennett clearly knew his way around a recording studio by the time this record was written and produced. The interesting thing though (sorry to generalise) is that for a drummer he clearly has an amazing way with a melody (pop fact – in the 80s he wrote TV themes including Dallas, The Sweeney and more).

This is one of those albums that has played constantly for the past week and from the first notes of the first track ‘Voyage’ coming on you know you are in for a journey. Albums like this often have one or two good tracks – this whole album is good. Great in fact. ‘Voyage’ is followed by the amazing slow-mo disco of ‘Solstice’ which is so good. An amazing track. The synths, the drums, the funk and groove. ‘Chain Reaction’ follows which feels more traditional in its way until its drops into the most unholy bassline groove. Where on earth did that come from…



Onto the B side where ‘Pendulum Groove’ sets the tone of the space race and is followed by ‘Air Quake’. This one is pretty nuts. I love it. A drum-less arpeggiated intro sets the tone as drum fills fly in and out before the track rolls together all flanging and (sorry) spaced out. ‘Ocean Glide’ leads us out as an arrival down to earth.

Bennett himself says, “This was music to complement or invoke visual imagery and I had this idea of the Earth in space, it was around the time of ‘Star Wars’ so this space fantasy thing was very much in vogue. I was also listening to a lot of Brian Eno and I wanted to see if I could write some material along those lines. I was given the go ahead by the label DJM and the concept was a voyage around the Earth. All the drums and synths, including a Prophet 5, were played live and we were experimenting with all the latest sounds and technology”.

The Prophet 5 he mentions really does shine and hearing music of this nature recorded in such a beautiful way is a joy. Add in the melody, playing and sounds and well…its just a wonderful thing. Highly recommended.

‘Voyage – A Journey Into Discoid Funk’ by Brian Bennett is released on Isle Of Jura on the 17th April 2017 on180gram vinyl.

P.S As an aside I was playing with Wolf Müller in Denmark last year and he played it and I had to take a picture of the record to remember the moment…

[Moderne]

I read an interview with Francis Monkman a few years ago (which seems to have disappeared from the internet) in which he seemed slightly browned off that his composing input into Voyage hadn't been acknowledged.

[JimN]

'Voyage' ...way back in the early '80s and still have it. Still sounds great. ... I am sure it was released in 1977, although there were TWO versions.

It was 1978!

VOYAGE - A JOURNEY INTO DISCOID FUNK LP
BENNETT, Brian
1978
DJM Records (UK)
DJF 20532 (stereo)
1. Voyage
2. Solstice
3. Chain Reaction

1. Pendulum Force
2. Air Quake
3. Ocean Glide
A 1978 solo LP from Brian Bennett. Rather puzzling (at the time). Duplicated on CD.

Solstice was also released in an edited-down form on a single, under the title Soul Ice.

Thames Television (of blessed memory) used Soul Ice as the theme for a short-lived 1982 quiz programme "Top Of The World", the last programme other than "This Is Your Life" to be presented by Eamonn Andrews.

If the Australian vinyl release has been dubbed from the master tape, does that mean that the latest CD version has come from the same source?

[drakula63]

I read an interview with Francis Monkman a few years ago (which seems to have disappeared from the internet) in which he seemed slightly browned off that his composing input into Voyage hadn't been acknowledged.

Yeah.

[drakula63]

'Voyage' ...way back in the early '80s and still have it. Still sounds great. ... I am sure it was released in 1977, although there were TWO versions.

It was 1978!

VOYAGE - A JOURNEY INTO DISCOID FUNK LP
BENNETT, Brian
1978
DJM Records (UK)
DJF 20532 (stereo)
1. Voyage
2. Solstice
3. Chain Reaction

1. Pendulum Force
2. Air Quake
3. Ocean Glide
A 1978 solo LP from Brian Bennett. Rather puzzling (at the time). Duplicated on CD.

Solstice was also released in an edited-down form on a single, under the title Soul Ice.

Thames Television (of blessed memory) used Soul Ice as the theme for a short-lived 1982 quiz programme "Top Of The World", the last programme other than "This Is Your Life" to be presented by Eamonn Andrews.

If the Australian vinyl release has been dubbed from the master tape, does that mean that the latest CD version has come from the same source?

Be a strange co-incidence if it hasn't.

I think the album may also have been released by BRUTON as a library album with different track titles. This may have been later, maybe as late as 1980. Pretty sure it was recorded in '77.

[UlrichS]

The "Voyage - A Journey into Discoid Funk" UK vinyl LP was released on 28. April 1978

1978-04-28.jpg (22.5 KiB) Viewed 13581 times

It was also issued as a Bruton library LP in 1980 under a different name and renaming the tracks:
FANTASIA (BRI 10)
A1. Fantastic Journey (6:17)
A2. Discovery (6:11)
A3. Shuttlecraft (6:53)
B1. Cloning (6:24)
B2. Tracer (4:10)
B3. A New World (6:34)