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This album was a first for me. I've been a prog-rock junkie since I discovered Traffic in my tween years. I did a quick tour all the way through Alan Parsons and then when I started earning money of my own I started drilling down and finding sounds that really clicked with me.
Pink Floyd was the rice that got flavored by a sauce of King Crimson. Noodles of Yes were delicious when tossed with a tangy Uriah Heap. Oddball combos by Blue Oyster Cult or Supertramp and hit-or-miss tracks by New Wave artists like Siouxsie and The Banshees or The Church carried me all the way into college and the end days of Primus and Faith No More. The Police and Queen floated me through rough times. Jethro Tull made me remember things could be worse. Rush and Queensryche were old and familiar friends, yes, but in the night my dreams were still scored by The Moody Blues and Procol Harum.
Still later in school Dream Theater and Porcupine Tree were bubbling in my brain, stewing with Asia and Zappa and Styx. On little cat feet, jam bands started to filter into the spaces over-saturated with my accustomed sounds. This was the radio-play heyday for Dave Matthews and G-Love, each of which builds songs on top of the same funk-infused jazz that my fevered mind craved. In a mad attempt to get one more fix I started drifting into trance and other electronica. (Some of that stuck, oddly. To this day I remain unashamed to say that, were I a woman, I'd throw my soaking-wet panties at Armin van Buuren. He's that good. Seriously. Rowr.)
Then came XM radio and the stations, "Deep Tracks" and "Music Lab." April Wine. Gentle Giant. Hawkwind. Camel. Captain Beefheart. Proto-Kaw/Kansas. Tangerine Dream. Ambrosia. Solo work by Hackett, Howe, Page, Beck, McGuinn, Mason, Gilmour, Wakeman, and that golden god of the soundtrack of my life--Steve Winwood.
Now I'm thirty-something and again I'm feeling that itch behind the eyeballs. Synchronicity dictates that I see an advertisement for Paul Cusick's album "Focal Point." I came in early enough in the promotion to hear the tracks being built, day by day, and heard music founded on the roots I have loved so well and fully in my life. The pieces grew and they changed. I was so delighted with the final mixdown that I paid to download the completed tracks instead of continuing to listen to the in-process tunes I'd pirated.
I posted a link in my Facebook to the download, telling everyone that it was "something like I imagine King Crimson would've been if it had been a solo act." The flavor I love is there. You'll hear Pink Floyd or Porcupine Tree or even Uriah Heap when you listen, but only because the music is founded in those same sounds, is rooted in the same progressive soil that exploded upward from the musical ferment that brought us everything from fusion jazz to reggae. Focal Point is a good album. A really good album. There are spots that throw me out of the narrative (some of the vocals in Hello, for example), but then there are others like Senza Tempo that sit me down, hard, and make me put on headphones so I can hear the music properly, sans the whir of fans and the buzz of fluorescent lights.
This is music that takes you out of skull. I can think of no praise higher in the world of progressive rock. Here's to hoping that Paul Cusick keeps us tripping for a long time to come.
Rating:  [5 of 5 Stars!] |
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