HW sorta: Simon House's Yassassim?

[Frank Weil]

Craig Shipley wrote:
> First of all, has this CD received domestic US release? Ain't seen hide
> 'nor hair of it _anywhere_. Is this a ltd. edition or is it sold "under
> the counter", what?!?!

My copy is a cardboard foldout digipack from EBS.  As an interesting
side note, the back cover says "Licensed to The Emergency Broadcast
System by D.Brock, A Davey, R Chadwick".

Songs: Yassasim, Orion, Northlands, Omedlor Rides Again, Laithwaite
Star Drive, Neuroscape, Sherwood, Oldayze

The whole album is instrumental.

> Secondly, for those of you who have heard it, what does it sound like?
> Solo effort, a band backing him up, ethnic-rock, ambient, rap, what??

Hmm...  It's a bit hard to describe.  It has rock aspects, but the
only song that I would say really cranks is Yassasim.  It has definite
ambient / new age aspects, but I wouldn't really call any of the songs
mellow.  It has spacey, whooshy aspects, but it also has parts where a
simple acoustic piano dominates.  The song Sherwood I would describe
as Enya on steroids with Simon's violin thrown in for good measure
(this is a positive comparison, BTW).  Simon's violin is present
across the entire CD without being oppressive.  In fact, I wish that
it were more prevalent in spots.  It's hard to classify this as a
House solo effort.  On one hand, his violin is almost omnipresent and
his touch is recognizable.  On the other hand, the CD is not a
centerpiece for his playing like the ones by, say, Yngwie Malmsteen
and Steve Vai are for them.

Overall, I like the album and would recommend it to fans of his work
with Hawkwind.  Just don't expect it to be a Hawkwind album.

Frank

--
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Frank Weil | frankw at comm.mot.com | phone: (847) 576-3110 | fax: (847) 576-3240

I don't practice what I preach, because I'm not the kind of person I'm
preaching to.            -- Bob Dobbs.