Su	Mo	Tu	We	Th	Fr	Sa
31	1	2	3	4	5	6
7	8	9	10	11	12	13
14	15	16	17	18	19	20
21	22	23	24	25	26	27
28	29	30	1	2	3	4

Clearlight - Visions (1978) [Reissue 2000]

Posted By: Andi_Deris

Date: 5 Dec 2016 21:10:01

After what was reportedly a commercial failure in the more straight-ahead, symphonically oriented Les Contes du Singe Fou, Cyrille decided to take over the production duties on the next album, Visions, and imbibed it with a slightly new musical direction based on Eastern philosophical and religious precepts. The result is a generally varied work that retains the more structured vibe of the previous album. Cyrille Verdeaux's piano and keyboard melodies are again the dominant force on Visions, and are supplemented by the usual eclectic blend of instrumentation. Compositionally speaking, the thing in general seems to have less of the spaced-out, psychedelic vibe of the first two albums, opting for a more composed, restrained atmosphere infected with exotic, apparently Eastern, tones and melodic ideas. The addition of Didier Lockwood on violin is a welcome one, providing a unique instrumental emphasis in the Clearlight catalog, as his violin is very prominent.

The album proper is generally solid, although half of the CD is taken up by bonus tracks which are less so. For that reason, I was a little put off by Visions on initial listens, but in focusing on the first seven tracks for this review, I have found it to be quite rewarding at points, with some minor inconsistencies. In general, there is a sort of sappy New Age vibe to the whole thing, especially on tracks like "Songe de Cristale" with its pretty piano melodies and the outro, "Paix Profonde", with the sitar emphasis. Indeed, the second half of the album is slightly less interesting that the first, though much shorter, and these tracks seem to simply function as a let down to the lengthier pieces prior. In any case, the real gems are to be found early on, most especially leadoff track "Spiral d'Amour" with a great, classically inspired piano melody that recalls earlier Clearlight. Also, "Full Moon Raga" builds up behind a chugging drum beat and climaxes with a pyrotechnic violin solo from Didier Lockwood. The bonus tracks are a mixed bag. "Guitar Elevation" ends up being one of the best track on the album, with a gorgeous piano melody beneath a searing guitar solo. However, some of the tracks get bogged down in overly New-Agey crumminess, while "Crystal City" actually incorporates the all-to-prominent generic techno beat. On the whole, Visions is a pretty solid album, though it can be a little much if one is not in the mood the kind of pretty, lightweight, and ultimately cheesy Eastern mysticism vibe of the whole thing. Although it certainly doesn't match the first two classics, Symphony and Forever Blowing Bubbles, fans of those albums will likely want to follow Verdeaux to Visions. ~ Greg Northrup

Wikipedia | Progarchives | Amazon

Track Listing

01. Spirale d'Amour (07:01)
02. Messe Caline (06:23)
03. Au Royaume Des Mutants (05:48)
04. Full Moon Raga (09:54)
05. Raga (Coda) (00:50)
06. Songe De Cristal (03:46)
07. Paix Profonde (02:56)
Bonus Tracks
08. Guitare Elevation (04:53)
09. Cristal City (05:28)
10. Shanti Lotus (07:45)
11. Heymae (05:04)
12. Vision Nocturne (03:33)
13. O Rage, O Espoir (05:44)
14. Songes de Cristal (remix) (04:07)

Produced by Cyrille Verdeaux & Dan Shapiro

The Band

• Cyrille Verdeaux : Composer, Piano, Synthesizers (1-14)
• Didier Lockwood : Electric & acoustic violin (1, 2, 3, 4)
• Didier Malherbe : Saxophone, flute (1, 2, 3, 4)
• Christian Boule: Electric guitar (1, 2, 3, 4, 12)
• Philippe Melkonian : Bass guitar (1, 2, 3, 4)
• Jacky Bouladoux : Drums (1, 2, 3, 4)
• Luc Plouton: Mini moog synthesizer (1, 2, 3, 4)
• Mohamed Taha: Table drums (4, 5, 7)
• Gerard Omont: Electric guitar (3, 7)
• Frederic Rousseau: Synthesizers (8, 9, 11)
• Jean-Philippe Rykiel: Mini-moog (8, 9, 11)
• Dallas Smith: Lyricon, Bamboo flute (8, 9, 11, 13)
• Gunnar Amundson: Synthesizer (10)
• Michael Osterhoudt: Electric guitar (10)
• Michel Risse: Drums, percussion (12)

EAC Log

Exact Audio Copy V1.1 from 23. June 2015

EAC extraction logfile from 16. September 2016, 20:05

Clearlight / Visions

Used drive : TSSTcorpCDDVDW SH-224DB Adapter: 1 ID: 0

Read mode : Secure
Utilize accurate stream : Yes
Defeat audio cache : Yes
Make use of C2 pointers : No

Read offset correction : 6
Overread into Lead-In and Lead-Out : No
Fill up missing offset samples with silence : Yes
Delete leading and trailing silent blocks : No
Null samples used in CRC calculations : Yes
Used interface : Native Win32 interface for Win NT & 2000

Used output format : User Defined Encoder
Selected bitrate : 1024 kBit/s
Quality : High
Add ID3 tag : No
Command line compressor : C:\Program Files (x86)\Exact Audio Copy\win64\flac.exe
Additional command line options : -V -8 -T "Date=%year%" -T "Genre=%genre%" %source%

TOC of the extracted CD

Track | Start | Length | Start sector | End sector
––––––––––––––––––––––––––––-
1 | 0:00.00 | 7:01.14 | 0 | 31588
2 | 7:01.14 | 6:23.07 | 31589 | 60320
3 | 13:24.21 | 5:47.50 | 60321 | 86395
4 | 19:11.71 | 9:54.33 | 86396 | 130978
5 | 29:06.29 | 0:50.03 | 130979 | 134731
6 | 29:56.32 | 3:45.39 | 134732 | 151645
7 | 33:41.71 | 2:56.16 | 151646 | 164861
8 | 36:38.12 | 4:52.45 | 164862 | 186806
9 | 41:30.57 | 5:27.63 | 186807 | 211394
10 | 46:58.45 | 7:45.03 | 211395 | 246272
11 | 54:43.48 | 5:03.36 | 246273 | 269033
12 | 59:47.09 | 3:32.39 | 269034 | 284972
13 | 63:19.48 | 5:43.74 | 284973 | 310771
14 | 69:03.47 | 4:06.38 | 310772 | 329259
15 | 75:42.10 | 3:43.43 | 340660 | 357427

Range status and errors

Selected range

Filename C:\Sket4er\Clearlight – Visions (1978) 2000\Clearlight - Visions.wav

Peak level 99.9 %
Extraction speed 3.4 X
Range quality 100.0 %
Test CRC FE5F1CAF
Copy CRC FE5F1CAF
Copy OK

No errors occurred

AccurateRip summary

Track 1 cannot be verified as accurate (confidence 1) [E8798D08], AccurateRip returned [B997D251] (AR v2)
Track 2 cannot be verified as accurate (confidence 1) [A2101DC5], AccurateRip returned [668365F6] (AR v2)
Track 3 cannot be verified as accurate (confidence 1) [2816A132], AccurateRip returned [21EC0013] (AR v2)
Track 4 cannot be verified as accurate (confidence 1) [D579BF3A], AccurateRip returned [B1D2CC01] (AR v2)
Track 5 cannot be verified as accurate (confidence 1) [3D5118F5], AccurateRip returned [E3DC4368] (AR v2)
Track 6 cannot be verified as accurate (confidence 1) [62A4E0DC], AccurateRip returned [BE579061] (AR v2)
Track 7 cannot be verified as accurate (confidence 1) [7C667906], AccurateRip returned [BB8C04AB] (AR v2)
Track 8 cannot be verified as accurate (confidence 1) [2B6C0C5A], AccurateRip returned [821A9F56] (AR v2)
Track 9 cannot be verified as accurate (confidence 1) [2CB17F47], AccurateRip returned [00A59457] (AR v2)
Track 10 cannot be verified as accurate (confidence 1) [4F5EE0B0], AccurateRip returned [DE343095] (AR v2)
Track 11 cannot be verified as accurate (confidence 1) [9CFF6F37], AccurateRip returned [3F3E5D15] (AR v2)
Track 12 cannot be verified as accurate (confidence 1) [BB1ECBB3], AccurateRip returned [B19F8948] (AR v2)
Track 13 cannot be verified as accurate (confidence 1) [AA058A27], AccurateRip returned [532B4382] (AR v2)
Track 14 cannot be verified as accurate (confidence 1) [01DECB14], AccurateRip returned [0F1570B6] (AR v2)

No tracks could be verified as accurate
You may have a different pressing from the one(s) in the database

End of status report

–– CUETools DB Plugin V2.1.6

[CTDB TOCID: E311_V3vO3bo2LZELFVfyCk97RI-] found
Submit result: E311_V3vO3bo2LZELFVfyCk97RI- has been uploaded
Track | CTDB Status
1 | (3/3) Accurately ripped
2 | (3/3) Accurately ripped
3 | (3/3) Accurately ripped
4 | (3/3) Accurately ripped
5 | (1/3) Differs in 40 samples @00:00:00
6 | (3/3) Accurately ripped
7 | (3/3) Accurately ripped
8 | (3/3) Accurately ripped
9 | (3/3) Accurately ripped
10 | (3/3) Accurately ripped
11 | (3/3) Accurately ripped
12 | (3/3) Accurately ripped
13 | (3/3) Accurately ripped
14 | (1/3) Accurately ripped
If you are sure that your rip contains errors, you can use CUETools to repair it.

==== Log checksum 004224DD225972EC7EBF4CB4F7D8BDA06FE725695FCB073DC18633761F680EEB ====

Many thanks to the original uploader: Sket4er