“Waiting for the Soundtrack is another blend of styles where David Wright excels at the art of touching our inner feelings”
1 Islands 6:01 2 Emerald Eyes 5:24 3 Shadowlands 5:45 4 Lovelight 4:09 5 Cloudless Flight 8:13 6 Desert Storm 5:50 7 Lady in the Night 4:41 8 Rainwalker 4:41 9 Always 4:40 10 Run for the Sun 7:27 11 Waiting for the Soundtrack 12:05 ADMusic – AD173CD
(CD/DDL 68:15) (V.F.) (England School and New Age)
David Wright's third album, WAITING FOR SOUNDTRACKS celebrates its 15 years by being the 5th album of the English musician to be remixed and to remasterised for the needs of Spotify and of iTunes, as well as for other streaming platforms. Following the bases of Romancing the Moon, David Wright offered in 1991 another album where the diversity in the genres was very underlined. An album very appreciated by the critics with another skillful mixture of heavy and lento electronic rock, in the lineage of England School, which is filled of good melodies where the New Age harmonies a la Vangelis stay anchored easily to our eardrums, and of ambient moods as meditative as cinematographic with arrangements which peck at the ropes of our sensibility. And like the first 2 reworked versions of David Wright's catalog, this album preserves this little MIDI sound. An element which gives to it these flavors that Tangerine Dream presented between the years of Le Parc and Tyger.
And that begins with an eruption of resounding, floating and sizzling lines which forge the bed of an interstellar ocean where are gliding layers of a synth loaded of celestial perfumes. Symphonic percussions attack the quietude of Islands, giving a more intense dimension to a music which adopts pleasantly that of a movie of the 50-60 years. Here, no need of dialogue because the chords, which ring like those of an acoustic guitar, start a talk with the seraphic choirs, which have become the artistic signature of David Wright over the years, on a long structure of meditative and film ambiences that our ears can enrich of a stream of images without being very creative at this level, so much everything is easy to reach. We doze off? No problem because Emerald Eyes wakes us with a good electronic rock tinted with a light Synth-Pop approach. A little bit old sound adds a charm to a music as lively as the harmonies are weavers of musical itches. Shadowlands is also a title of film ambiences with more intensity than Islands. The music is like a scarlet thick cloud where skips a line of sequences and float synth layers a bit silvered to the colors of Tangerine Dream in Green Desert. Lovelight is a superb ballad hyper melodious with an acoustic guitar which spreads a very pensive structure whereas the synth whistles a melody which crosses us the envelope of the soul. Desert Storm takes back a bit this melodious approach on a slightly livelier structure. It’s some good David Wright, here and on the very beautiful Always who always excels at the art to tickle some sensitive inner strings. Cloudless Flight is another good electronic rock with a light and very accessible approach. The rhythm attaches its jolts in a mosaic of sequenced spasms to which are added orchestral layers, fluty harmonies and silky arrangements. The title uses well its 8 minutes with an evolutionary approach at the level of the arrangements and the melodies, although the main structure of rhythm remains Teutonic throughout Cloudless Flight. It’s a track which had seduced the criticisms back in 1991.
Lady in the Night is a good lento E-Rock with an always so hyper melodious with a very Tangerine Dream approach at the level of synths. Here as in all the music of David Wright, the arrangements and the melodies don’t stop to interlace in a musical embrace always so intense. After Rainwalker, which is situated between a ballad and a lively E-Rock flavored of the spices from the East, Always brings us back to these wonderful lands of dreams which are often the link which connects us with this very Vangelis approach of David Wright. In a structure a little livelier but as much ready as that of Cloudless Flight, Run for the Sun begins its departure with a meshing of percussions and drummed sequences. The harmonies are whistled over some orchestral layers with effects of dance music of the 70's. After 3 minutes of steady structure, Run for the Sun takes an ambiosonic bend loaded of ethereal atmospheres pierced by effects of sequences carbonized into cryonic gases. Little by little the skeleton of origin starts again limping with noisier effects in the percussions, kind of Jean-Michel Jarre techno style at that time, and more luxuriant synth layers with a mix of celestial voices and orchestrations which add a New Age depth to the music. The title-track ends this David Wright's 3rd solo opus with powerful orchestrations which waltz in the crashes of symphonic drums. The power gets calmer and plunges into a seraphic choir from where shines a soft reverie strummed on a keyboard. This delicate keyboard draws the lines of a soft melody which grants its fragility to layers of violin of which the angelic caresses feed the fire of Waiting for the Soundtrack. An electric piano invites itself to this morphic serenade with stars which sparkle in a cosmos which in the end sees its celestial bodies being pulverized by the outburst of scattered bass drums. And the effects of surprise have the same effect on us as on the celestial bodies.
But whatever it's from the cosmos or the oblivion, the Earth as the oceans, WAITING FOR SOUNDTRACKS possesses all these attributes which invite us to make our cinema in our head. And whether it's ambient, New Age or big electronic rock made in England, David Wright had confirmed with this album that he was not a flash in the pan but well and truly a dominant artist who was going to leave his imprints in the very big sphere of EM, Berliner style and its substitutes.
Sylvain Lupari (December 30th, 2006) ***½**
Available at AD Music