The Light Of A Million Suns
Waiting To Catch The Light
Gary Wright
One of the main architects of Spooky Tooth, a session player on George Harrison’s
All Things Must Pass, collaborator of Ravi Shankar’s,
the voice, composer and producer of the 1975 hit “Dream Weaver,”
and a member of the 2008 Ringo Starr & His All Starr Band — Gary Wright
has been in the limelight for nearly 40 years, and he’s still at it. This
time he has two key releases making the rounds: an EP called The Light
Of A Million Suns and the all-instrumental Waiting To Catch
The Light.
The Light of A Million Suns is a four-song EP that opens with
a new version of Wright’s “Love Is Alive.” Wright duets with
his son Dorian on a sample-laden reading of the hit, which grooves with a beat-box-like
rhythm. Other than the updated drum patterns and the sampling, the rest of this
re-imagining is rather useless. The same approach is applied to the next two
songs, “Little One” and “This Heart Might Break Tonight.”
Wright’s vocals shine on the latter; in fact, he sounds pretty solid vocally
on all these tunes. At times, he gets a little lost in the higher registers,
but when he wants to, he really can deliver quite a soulful performance. This
carries over to the fourth and final song“Hold On,” which features
some good percussion — something totally different than the previous three
tracks. An emboldened lyric makes it quite the inspiring tune.
Wright says when he recorded the all-instrumental Waiting To Catch
The Light, he wanted “to put the listener into a meditative and
relaxed state of mind.” I’m not so sure what state of mind I was
in after listening to these six ambient ditties, but with a few exceptions I
was wondering what exactly he was going for. These aren’t so much songs
as they are doodles of Wright’s distinctive piano and some synth lines
that never really develop into much. Because of my deep love of progressive
rock, I‘ll follow some very odd little paths when it comes to instrumental
passages, but this album really doesn’t ‘catch the light’
for me.
That being said, there are some magical moments here: the opener “Silent
Choirs of Snowflakes” boosts a speedy synth line battling the airy echo
keys; “Curtains of Change” features an effective, slight sad line;
and “Fires of Memories” might be the highlight of the whole disc.
Gary Wright is unquestionably a great musician, and there are hints of good
ideas, such as the Kitaro-like middle passage on “Lost In The Forest Of
Time” and the arpeggiated keys on “Stones, Stars And Sages.”
Everything is all nicely played, but sadly just brief snippets in what I was
hoping would sooner-more-than-later flesh out into full instrumental tracks.
It’s difficult to pinpoint these two discs from such an obviously talented
guy like Gary Wright. Aside from “Hold On,” I really can’t
get behind The Light of A Million Suns. On Waiting
To Catch The Light, I applaud some of those cool synth/piano sounds,
but there’s not much here in the way of viable composition or even a soundscape
that will put the listener into a “meditative and relaxed state of mind.”
It’s damn good to hear from Gary Wright, and there’s no denying
that a talent like his should be heard from more often. However, it would be
much better if we were to get something more sustentative from the guy.
~ Ralph Greco, Jr.
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