In the context of his entire body of work, it’s neither out of place nor a difficult listen…quite the opposite. Even after 20 plus years, whenever I play this CD, it seems to fly by and end too soon – I can’t find a boring or wasted second on here. Jackson takes his cues from a wide range of composers (Aaron Copland, Ennio Morricone, Philip Glass to name a few), and comes up with an utterly original and fresh take on contemporary classical music. “No Pasaran” is pensive and slightly nervous with excellent use of dynamic range and spiky orchestral stabs. “Solitude” is beautifully mournful, one of the great treasures of his catalogue. The title track may be my favorite, it incorporates many styles into a unified and exciting whole and does so in a masterful way. “Nocturne” is Jackson’s piano solo showcase, and it’s fantastically beautifully composed and played…so much soul coming from the performance. The album closes with a piece reworked from a score he wrote for a Japanese film, that trivial tidbit hardly matters though. It’s certainly cinematic, or maybe I should really say it’s program music as it conveys a meaning that is forced to be separate from the film music that spawned it (having never seen the movie, that is). The sound quality of this release is expertly engineered – a full digital recording but done right with warmth and fullness. I’ve owned this album since it’s release and it gets played several times a year. As time passes, familiarity has caused a strong personal bond with the music and it’s become one of my favorite albums. —BabeHardy
