DARRYL WAY: Destinations (ROCK): review / opinion to read on Music Waves

If some records cultivate the mystery by hermetic covers or abstruse titles, it's not the case for the new Darryl Way production : the title, "Destinations", and the cover, a plane flying above the clouds towards a beautiful sunset, clearly announce the journey Darryl Way invites us to.

For those who don't know him or have forgotten him, Darryl Way is the co-founder of Curved Air, a band mixing progressive rock and folk. Trained as a violinist, he quickly added new strings to his bow and proved to be equally gifted on keyboards and guitar.

You won't find any progressive rock à la Curved Air on "Destinations". The album, entirely instrumental, uses the same recipe on all ten tracks: a solo instrument, most often the guitar and the violin, the keyboards in a more episodic way, sings a melody on a rhythmic framework well in place and fleshed out. Each title unfolds one or two themes, the solo instruments taking turns regularly to interpret them. The tunes are mostly lively and light, almost dance-like for some, more rarely melancholic.

No complexity to be expected from this easy listening music that is immediately consumable. The interest of the album lies above all, in addition to the quality of the interpretation, in the variety of the atmospheres proposed: each title is a postcard representative of an often cinematic atmosphere. It is easy to imagine the hectic life of L.A. to the sound of police sirens and brass keyboards of 'Downtown LA' or the nonchalance of a summer sunbathing on a Caribbean beach ('Antigua Bay'), you see yourself riding your motorbike with your hair in the wind on a straight American road like an 'i' ('Freedom Road'), you imagine this long brown girl dancing barefoot on a music from Latin America ('Riviera Blue'). 'A Rainy Day in Vienna' is as sweet and melancholic as a rainy day, romantic with its almost classical violin. 'The Wild West' is aptly named after him, as it seems to come straight out of a western with a soundtrack by Ennio Morricone.

If it is exotic, "Destinations" is also close to background music, the kind that easily goes unnoticed behind a lively conversation between friends. Pleasant to listen to, this album is however unlikely to leave an imperishable memory. - Official website

DARRYL WAY

DESTINATIONS

GLASS ONYON

ROCK