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Tom Newman - Faerie Symphony
Tubby Bells engineer in the court of the faerie queen
Thirty-two years on from its original and untimely release in 1977, this late folk-prog album now sounds rather more ahead of its time than it must have then. Newman, Tubular Bells engineer and sometime member of The Tomcats, created a series of lush, lyrical ditties for the album that fused Irish and Scottish folk influences with ambient backdrops. It’s an unearthly and unsettling ride. The Seelie Court opens with gong crescendos before a horsehoof beat emerges with a wavering flute like a cross between Ennio Morricone and, unsurprisingly, Mike Oldfield. On Dance Of The Daoine Sidhe, Newman somehow gets away with a Scottish military tattoo played on electric guitars. Despite the titular concept, there’s nothing obviously faerie-like herein – the pulsing, exotic rhythms and bizarre ending of The Unseelie Court being a case in point.
A passionate late claim for the tenets of prog that’s enjoyable and suprising, Faerie Symphony is an odd fish in a decidedly odd pond – and is all the better for it.
Esoteric | ECLEC 2109
Reviewed by Jan Zarebski
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