Taylor’s Universe- From Scratch (Marvel of Beauty Records MOBCD025)

Multi-instrumentalist, Robin Taylor is back with 7 new compositions featuring 11 Danish musicians, some very well known from the Danish 70s music scene (Karsten Vogel- sax and clarinet) and Claus Bøhling (Guitar) as well Thomas Thor on mini-moog, Klaus Thrane on Drums and Robin plays primarily bass but also all the keyboards except the mini-moog. There are a lot of guests: Jacob Mygind- sax, Carsten Sindvald- sax, and Jytte, Jan and Louise on voices.  Other Meetings starts things off with some fantastic guitar by Claus. Beta X is a strange more experimental track with a lot of synths, voices, vocoder, and strange things going on in the background. A very different mood from the rest of the record and a lovely organ sound and solo. The end is really far out. Balcony People has a bit of a dark mood to start and some samples or voices at the slow start. Interrail is the longest track at 9½ mins and starts off slowly. Claus kicks in around 1½ mins with some intense soloing that is really quite tortured as the whole piece grows in intensity and then the happy female voices come in, just to mess with your head. Some horns squeeze through every now and then but then the track falls down the well and disappears into a strange place and there is a struggle for dominance and then one prevails and the main theme escapes. Very cool song. Laura’s Lullaby is a beautiful piece of piano and sax-clarinet music but a bit predictable. Für Louise is next and features some lovely horn playing and the occasional guitar, which really makes the track anything but predictable. A dark mood is created by the keyboards but the rest a light and happy feeling. Later there is a really nice mini-moog solo by Thomas Thor. Autumn River is nearly 7 mins long and starts with a slow droning synth fade in before some spacey guitar with a lot of delay starts to build things up against the keyboard line. This track is all about highlighting the creative guitar work of Claus Bøhling, pity the solo is faded out at the end. Cool record, again. Thanks Robin…

http://www.progressor.net/robin-taylor/