Flying Petals

Collection Contents

#		Title	Length
1		Signals In	1:09	Play
2		Flying Petals	5:51	Play
3		Time Can Talk	5:35	Play
4		Neptune Goddess	6:48	Play
5		Bowels of the Agency (bush Lied Mix)	7:02	Play
6		Todi K	4:51	Play
7		Dragon Breath	8:04	Play
8		Loganut	4:11	Play
9		When Flight Paths Emerge	9:38	Play
10		Savannah 13	6:20	Play
11		Call of the Z'antuu	6:58	Play
12		Mood Swang (code Mix)	8:24	Play
13		Signals Out	2:32	Play

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Description

All tracks were conceived, recorded, and produced by Kit Watkins, except Time Can Talk by Kit Watkins and Amir Baghiri.

Kit Watkins: keyboards and modules, sampler, slide and ebow guitars, fretless bass, vocals, drum pads, drum programming, live and sampled drums/percussion, virtual acoustic synthesizer (emulating guitars, saxes, trumpets, percussion, electronics, hybrids), waterphone and other acoustic gems, audio conjecture, engineering, editing, and production.

Synthesizer kalimba throughout Time Can Talk by Amir Baghiri.

Rhythm loops on Flying Petals and Mood Swang provided by outside parties.

Bird call samples on Dragon Breath and Call of the ZAntuu by Steve Reid.

Ambient guitar loop on Bowels of the Agency by David Torn.

Bowels of the Agency voices of Dubya, Rummy, Dick, Wolfie, Colon, and Condi manipulated by Kit Watkins, originally from the Robert Greenwald documentary UNCOVERED: the whole truth about the Iraq war available at www.truthuncovered.com.

REVIEWS
Former Happy the Man keyboardist Kit Watkins creates an adventurous sonic journey on this disc, which is as intriguing for the depth of compositional talent as it is for beautiful sound design and monster grooves. Emotive melodies played on mysterious woodwinds emerge from emotional harmonic tapestries, and odd metric constructs seamlessly support form and structure that move forward in time with satisfying sensibility. Throw in some topical social content, and youve got quite a mature release on your hands. If youre a synth-head, you gotta check this out. Ernie Rideout, Keyboard, May 2004

Kit Watkins seemed to be lost for progressive rock. During the last couple of years he mainly concentrated himself on ambient and meditative music, in which performances with the reunited Happy The Man didnt fit. After listening to Flying Petals a guest-appearance on The Muse Awakens, HTMs comeback-record, is a very good possibility though (ed. reviewer's hypothesis). Its a 77 minutes lasting reproduction of recordings made between 1995 and 2004 of so called progressive world-fusion-music. He calls it Beat Music, which is a well-chosen definition, when you look at its extraordinary rhythmic character. In the first part the rhythm still serve the compositions, like in the hefty title-track, in which typical Watkins-solos (a Moog that sounds like a trumpet or saxophone) and a threatening, slurring synthesizer-theme, combined with a guitar-accompaniment and solo lead to a increasingly broader layered sound-picture. Absolutely fierce is Bowels Of The Agency (Bush Lied Mix); sampled and manipulated speeches about the so-called existence of mass-destruction weapons in Iraq create a dark sphere, which is being intensified by low, David Gilmour-like guitar-licks and intriguing loops of guest-musician David Torn. Neptune Goddess, with its recognizable strum-sequencer and a beautiful break to a more up-tempo part, would have fitted perfectly on a HTM-record or on Labyrinth or SunStruck. The second part of the CD looks a bit poor of melody, but appearances are deceptive. Long stretching tracks like Dragon Breath and When Flight Paths Emerge contain a constantly shifting, exciting play of tuned and un-tuned percussion and sounds, in which melody-instruments are mainly brought into action to intensify the climaxes. Working with acoustic and electronic percussion-instruments is one of the trademarks of the music of Watkins; on Flying Petals he manages to reach a certain perfection in this, while comparisons with the Dutch percussion-ensemble Slagerij Van Kampen arent out of place. Together with the as always very recognizable sounds and solos, the varied beats make sure that this is a successful return to progressive music. Ren Yedema, iO Pages, May/June 2004

Havent heard much from Kit since Rolling Curve and three related ambient releases in 2001. Flying Petals is one of four new releases for 2004 (this, plus two new ambient releases unraveled and This Time and Space, a reissue of 1982s Frames of Mind, and a new release Guard Lock Skin by his improvisational world fusion trio Tone Ghost Ether have all been released pretty much simultaneously). The compositions herein could generally be described as upbeat symphonic electronica, in many ways similar to earlier works like Labyrinth, although most of the material here is far more percussively charged. Most pieces start with complex rhythms of sampled percussion, then build melodic structures over it using keyboard synths, and occasionally guitars and sax as well. Some, like Savannah 13, are pretty much rhythm workouts all the way through. Todi K and Neptune Goddess take a more subtle approach, elevating the melodic elements in a more typically progressive rock style. Bowels of the Agency takes the Bush administration to task for its intelligence failures, using voice samples from statements by GWB, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Condi Rice and others over a droning backdrop interspersed with more percussive based passages, making for one of the discs most interesting cuts. Treated voices and obscured lyrics on Time Can Talk join the main theme in unison, while Call of the ZAntuu begins as a gentle introspective solo piece before busy rhythms guide it to its conclusion. Fans of Watkins previous solo works will find plenty of interest herein. Peter Thelen, Expos, Issue #29, May 2004