Brian's Rock Dreams and Voyage on Spotify

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Re: Brian's Rock Dreams and Voyage on Spotify

Postby drakula63 » Mon Jun 05, 2017 10:31 pm

Yeah, thought so. I can't imagine it was recorded in 1978 if it was released in April. Possible, I suppose, but I would think that FM was busy with 'other things' by then...
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Re: Brian's Rock Dreams and Voyage on Spotify

Postby MartcasterJunior » Tue Jun 06, 2017 8:42 am

I've been listening to Voyage at work for the past couple of days and it's great. Similar in style to War Of The Worlds but stands up to repeated listening a lot more; not as repetitive.
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Re: Brian's Rock Dreams and Voyage on Spotify

Postby drakula63 » Tue Jun 06, 2017 11:01 am

MartcasterJunior wrote:I've been listening to Voyage at work for the past couple of days and it's great. Similar in style to War Of The Worlds but stands up to repeated listening a lot more; not as repetitive.


If you get Francis Monkman's album 'Energism', to my mind THIS sounds very close to 'Voyage'. Also released as both a solo and library album.
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Re: Brian's Rock Dreams and Voyage on Spotify

Postby iefje » Sat Jun 10, 2017 10:42 am

I've got the original LP's of both albums, the See For Miles CD from 1997 and also the Bruton Music library LP "Fantasia". Two of my favourite Brian Bennett albums.
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Re: Brian's Rock Dreams and Voyage on Spotify

Postby iefje » Fri Jun 23, 2017 9:40 am

drakula63 wrote: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!
:thumbup:


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…


For once, a positive review for this album! However, no mention of Alan Jones' fantastic bass playing, which, together with Brian's drumming, really drives the album.
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Re: Brian's Rock Dreams and Voyage on Spotify

Postby iefje » Thu Oct 26, 2017 11:51 am

I have listened to "Voyage" again this morning from the original LP, still a fantastic album. On most tracks, Alan Jones doesn't just play 'accompanying' bass guitar, but also some sort of lead bass guitar with added phase and distorted effects, especially on the tracks "Chain Reaction", "Pendulum Force" and "Air Quake". On the record sleeve it says that the synthesizers were 'programmed' by Francis Monkman, but synthesizers of that time were mostly or only analogue if I'm right and didn't have a memory to store presets in, or am I wrong?
If the album was recorded in 1977, then it must have been around the time of The Shadows' "20 Golden Dates", where Francis Monkman, Alan Jones and of course Brian were part of.
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Re: Brian's Rock Dreams and Voyage on Spotify

Postby iefje » Thu Oct 26, 2017 11:54 am

Moderne wrote: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.


The same happened more or less with The Shadows' originals from the Polydor era and maybe two years prior, which featured Alan Jones and Cliff Hall.
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Re: Brian's Rock Dreams and Voyage on Spotify

Postby MartcasterJunior » Thu Oct 26, 2017 3:59 pm

iefje wrote:I have listened to "Voyage" again this morning from the original LP, still a fantastic album. On most tracks, Alan Jones doesn't just play 'accompanying' bass guitar, but also some sort of lead bass guitar with added phase and distorted effects, especially on the tracks "Chain Reaction", "Pendulum Force" and "Air Quake". On the record sleeve it says that the synthesizers were 'programmed' by Francis Monkman, but synthesizers of that time were mostly or only analogue if I'm right and didn't have a memory to store presets in, or am I wrong?
If the album was recorded in 1977, then it must have been around the time of The Shadows' "20 Golden Dates", where Francis Monkman, Alan Jones and of course Brian were part of.


There were synthesizers around in 1977/1978 which could hold presets (I'm thinking particularly of the Prophet V which F. Monkman used a lot but Voyage might just pre-date the introduction of that). I think, in those days, the "programming" partly referred to the setting up of patches on an analogue synth because doing so was such a complicated task (although it was probably easier by the late 70s - in the early days of the modular Moog synths you'd have someone, who probably had a degree in Physics, "programme" the sounds and then a musician actually play it), but it might also refer to the programming of one or more sequencers (again, pretty basic in those days, but still available).
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Re: Brian's Rock Dreams and Voyage on Spotify

Postby iefje » Mon Oct 30, 2017 1:54 pm

MartcasterJunior wrote:
iefje wrote:I have listened to "Voyage" again this morning from the original LP, still a fantastic album. On most tracks, Alan Jones doesn't just play 'accompanying' bass guitar, but also some sort of lead bass guitar with added phase and distorted effects, especially on the tracks "Chain Reaction", "Pendulum Force" and "Air Quake". On the record sleeve it says that the synthesizers were 'programmed' by Francis Monkman, but synthesizers of that time were mostly or only analogue if I'm right and didn't have a memory to store presets in, or am I wrong?
If the album was recorded in 1977, then it must have been around the time of The Shadows' "20 Golden Dates", where Francis Monkman, Alan Jones and of course Brian were part of.


There were synthesizers around in 1977/1978 which could hold presets (I'm thinking particularly of the Prophet V which F. Monkman used a lot but Voyage might just pre-date the introduction of that). I think, in those days, the "programming" partly referred to the setting up of patches on an analogue synth because doing so was such a complicated task (although it was probably easier by the late 70s - in the early days of the modular Moog synths you'd have someone, who probably had a degree in Physics, "programme" the sounds and then a musician actually play it), but it might also refer to the programming of one or more sequencers (again, pretty basic in those days, but still available).


Thank you for that Matthew. I have seen a mini-documentary by Jean-Michel Jarre on his "Oxygene - New Master Recording" DVD from 2007, in which he demonstrates a lot of the analogue synthesizers which he used on his early albums and also the special concert "Oxygene - Live In Your Living Room". It probably was and is quite a complicated task to preset or programme those instruments, but also much fun I guess.
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Re: Brian's Rock Dreams and Voyage on Spotify

Postby MartcasterJunior » Mon Oct 30, 2017 4:56 pm

Marcaster Sr. and I went to see him on that tour and sat on the front row. It was fantastic (there was a huge mirror hanging at an angle over the stage so that you could seem them altering the synths in real-time). I'm not really a fan of his big, spectacular shows (where I'm almost certain that 99% of it is pre-recorded). I've got software-based emulations of some of the synthesizers that he used on that tour and it's just not as easy or pleasurable as being able to turn knobs and move patch cables and 'feel' what a difference you're making to the sound.
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