Don Airey - A Light In The Sky

Deep Purple's Don Airey has perhaps the most enviable record of any rock based keyboardist in history - with stints with everyone from Ozzy Osborne, Gary Moore, Rainbow, Whitesnake, Black Sabbath and Judas Priest, to Jethro Tull and ELO... and even Andrew Lloyd Webber!

'Light In The Sky' is Don's first solo release since his acclaimed K2 album from back in the mid 80's. Truly a living legend, Don is well known to the AOG crew as also he has the dubious distinction of having played in the studio and on stage (many moons ago!) with your humble Editor: indeed one of the tracks on this space themed album - 'Andromeda M31' - is actually co-written between Don and myself from back in around 1993 - so we were all looking forward to hearing this album.

Before we start I have to state that as I have had several years out of the loop with Don I am not physically playing here, so despite my loose involvement what follows is as much as possible an impartial review of the album. My good mate, the excellent Rob Harris (session man extraordinaire and Jamiroquai's superb guitarist) has laid down all the guitars here: so, without further ado, lets investigate...

Overview!

Opener 'Big Bang' is a short instrumental piece that sets the theme, with swirling banks of spacey keyboards, before segueing into the ethereal and epic 'Ripples In The Fabric of Time' - another instrumental with layers of choir and strings from Don's enviable array of vintage and modern keyboards. A burst of guitar brings in a loose proggy type section with loads of Don's raging Hammond, and the first of Rob Harris excellent guitar solos, this is a prog fans delight! Classical virtuoso Lidia Baich lays down an astounding violin solo on a track that several of us in the office felt had a strong Jean Michel Jarre element: certainly the layers of lush analog synths bears analagy this out...

'Shooting Star' is the first of the vocal tracks, and after a very Purple burst of Hammond, we are straight into a Rainbow style rocker - great hooks here, and a catchy as hell chorus! A corking blues solo from Rob Harris as well - showing just what an authoritative command of rock guitar he has: this will no doubt surprise those who are only familiar with Rob from his Jamiroquai. Carl Sentance provide's some great, helium filled, vocals that fans of 80's rock will love: and check out the great trade offs between Don and Rob during the fade out!

'Space Troll Armada' veers closely to free form jazz fusion territory - probably more reminiscent of Don's days with Fusion pioneers Colosseum II - great bass solo from Laurence Cottle here...

'Andromeda M31' has kept much of the spirit of what I originally envisaged as an ethereal Jeff Becky type piece: Rob has done a sterling job on interpreting my original - no doubt ham fisted! - guitar lines, and remained true to the originals mood, but with some great embellishments. Haunting, melodic, and spacey - great stuff! The moment when the strings kick in is spine tingling - and check Rob shredding out at the end... Needless to say - buy or die!

'Endless Night' is a great Purple style up tempo double bass drum driven rocker, with lots of Blackmore-esque 4th guitar riffs, another great melodic chorus, and some tone-rich Les Paul soloing from Rob - clearly enjoying a chance to rock out!

Then we have a trio of linked tracks: 'Rocket To The Moon' is a light hearted bluesy - almost 50's rock'n'roll - little jolly: dig those barber shop backing vocals from Thunder's inimitable drummer Harry James! This then takes a sudden detour into some epic ethereal science fiction movie style string pads with 'Lift Off' before flowing into the piano led introduction to 'Love You Too Much'. The beginning conjures up images of some of John Miles 70's epic's, before 'The Man With The Golden Larynx' Danny Bowes leads us into a bluesy minor key ballad. Air Keyboardists will groove on the solos here - and some very evocative changes with lashings of Diminished chords before a rock-tastic finale.

'Cartwheel ESO 350-40' takes us back into New Age territory, and is a short instrumental opening for 'Sombrero M104', which with its odd time meter track that flirts with both Latin and Eastern musical imagery and is a springboard for some great piano flourishes.

'Into Orbit' is perhaps an evocative instrumental, opening with a dash of 'late night in a bar' jazzy piano, and some flowing virtuoso violin from Lidia Baich - and Neo-Classical axeperts reading this should be advised to check out Lydia's arpeggios - transcribe these babies and your fret board excursions will gain a freshness that you won't get from working through a guitarists work.

Then, a Hammond organ fanfare heralds the epic 'A Light In The Sky (Pt 2)' another vocal track from the excellent Carl Sentance. With it's myriad of musical inflections - from epic Eastern evocations to Celtic flourishes - this is the one that fans of Rainbows epics such as 'Stargazer', 'Gates of Babylon' and 'Eyes Of The World' will lap up. Very prog with a FANTASTIC chorus and vocals from a never better Sentance - and Rob kicks out a great Blackmore-esque solo coupled with some great Hammond soloing; this is the albums stand out track. Rainbow/Dio/Purple fans queue up and buy the album for this track alone!

'Pale Blue Dot' is a melodically doomy sounding up tempo interlude with lots of eastern scale improvisations from Don - again fans of Neo Classical guitar could do with transcribing this piece...

'Metallicity' provides an intro to 'Big Crunch' which, with it's mass of syncro lines from Guitar, keyboards and violin is an great instrumental work out. Rob gets to flex his outside chops here, and this is a real muso's tour de force: Rob, Don and Lydia trading death defying licks akimbo. Great Fender Rhodes (I think...!) here, and with some cool Jeff Beck 'Blow By Blow' sections, a drum wig-out from Darrin Mooney this is an eventful musical showcase that should have ardent music school students salivating.

Finally we have the plaintive 'Lost In The End Of Time' which is a piano led lament full of gorgeous changes: choral keyboards, and great strings this has some sublime piano excursions from Don, violins, and some more Becky guitar from Rob to end the album.

Conclusion

Back in the 70's Don first rose to prominence with fusion pioneers Colosseum II, and there is no doubt that this will appeal particularly to fans of that band. This is an album that works particularly well if you can listen to it in one sitting - a car journey at night would be perfect to capture the images that the album evokes. With the many displays of virtuoso musicianship on display throughout the disc - all captured live in the studio, so no pro tools trickery here! - this is very much a muso's record, but equally there are enough musical references to Rainbow and Purple (and some great commercial hooks!) to ensure satisfaction for those bands enormous fan base. So, fans of intelligent and thought provoking music should definitely invest in this - and make sure you catch this live, as Don assures me that he will taking this one on the road!