Raised on the south coast of England of bilingual heritage, guitarist/ composer MAT DICKSON spent many years paying his dues on the rock circuit in England and France before returning to his on-going love affair with lighthouses and all things maritime to present his first solo album "The Lighthouse Keeper."
Beautifully housed in a sleeve featuring a detailed Marine Chart of the area courtesy of the British Admiralty, "The Lighthouse Keeper" is basically an instrumental suite of tracks paying homage to The Needles Lighthouse and its' surrounding area off the English south coast, and - while it's a million miles from any standard pop fix - it's evocative, cinematic sweep more than draws you in with repeated listens.
Stylistically, the album is definitely in the same vein as early Mike Oldfield, some of Mark Knopfler's soundtrack work ("Local Hero" sometimes springs to mind) and also some of the unfairly-derided instrumental work available on the supposedly 'new age' Windham Hill label in the late 1980s. And, while it's unusual to find your reviewer writing favourably about what could (in places) be easily pigeonholed as "Prog" (erk!), Dickson's good at emotional content, too, so the obvious virtuosity thankfully doesn't get in the way too much.
The tracks themselves ebb and flow like the tides themselves, and throughout the course of the album we get jubilation, sadness, serenity and the relentless pounding of the sea itself. Often, mind, its' breathtaking to behold, such as with the exquisite acoustic picking introducing "The Citadel"; the haunting Vini Reilly-isms of "Farewell To The Lighthouse Keeper" or the first part of "Back Of The Wight", where the evocatively forlorn guitars recall The Chameleons' more pastoral moments. Then there's "Light Of Hope", which is arguably the jauntiest and most upbeat pop moment here.
|
If anything, Dickson keeps his most evocative piece - the Robert Fripp-style guitar overture "Dawn Of Tomorrow" - in reserve for the finale, but really you need to listen to "The Lighthouse Keeper" in its' entirety to understand the scope and compositional depth at work here. Like I said before, this is from a different world and entirely removed from the scam-hungry rock'n'roll scene. It's Mat Dickson's work, sure, but it's quite obvious that this work is a labour of love.
|
