What Are You Listening To?

[Ruby]

A Suite of Gods – Rick Wakeman and Ramon Remedios

This is from Rick Wakeman’s set of material in a new age style, and next up after Zodiaque. It’s not strictly operatic, nor is it classical – there’s too much of a crossover thing happening for that, but it fits here more than in any other category, IMHO and the singing is operatic/classical.

I think that these two artists complement one another very nicely. Remedios is no Pavarotti, but he has a good, true, strong tenor and the biggest bonus is that it’s all sung in English so understandable for those of us who don’t know much else! There’s no ‘star’ here – it’s a good balance of music and song. Wakeman uses the Korg synthesizer throughout the album, and the vocals, while decisive, are not overpowering.

It’s a concept album of sorts, the Greek and Roman gods of mythology being the main cast of characters and their tracks seem to describe them quite well. I like it a lot – especially the ode to Ulysses …. (Possibly something to do with the fact that I’m reading about Homer at the moment!) …

[video=youtube;TWjjW-Gzmb0]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TWjjW-Gzmb0[/video]