Tim Blake Albums (3)
'The Tide of the Century'
Release Date 5/20/2003
Tracks 7
Label Blueprint
See Album Tracklist and Review
What The Critics Say
Released in 1991, Magick was former Gong and Hawkwind keyboardist Tim Blake's only recording in a nearly 20-year stretch of virtual retirement. In his liner notes, Blake claims that these eight home-recorded songs were never meant to be heard outside of his immediate circle, and indeed, the record has a rough-edged, homemade charm that makes it sound like a casual demo. Perhaps surprisingly, this effect is actually in the album's favor, as it keeps the album's space rock explorations from sounding overly slick or garishly pretentious. The 12-minute "The Strange Secret of Ohm-Gliding" is an almost funky instrumental with a sequenced bassline that suggests that Blake had been listening to some of the acid house records that were popular at the time. The handful of vocal tracks reminds listeners that Blake has an uncanny vocal similarity to the young Peter Gabriel, but that his lyrical sense doesn't quite keep pace with his composing and arranging abilities. They're not bad, just kind of slight, and in truth, that slightness is in keeping with the offhand quality of the album as a whole. ~ Stewart Mason, All Music Guide
What The Critics Say
Too many synth artists of the early to mid-'70s seemed more interested in demonstrating their dexterity with their instrument than actually showing why it was worth being dexterous with in the first place. The reason Tim Blake is important is because he took the opposite approach entirely. Schooled in Gong and soon to dignify Hawkwind, Blake is a composer first, a technician a very distant second. And if New Jerusalem, his solo debut, represents a peak which electronic rock in general has yet to top, Crystal Machine is at least equal to the task. In maintaining the earlier album's application of melody over mood, Blake totally separates himself from the ranks of sallow, clever souls who let their machines do all the talking -- a lesson which, by year's end, both Jean Michel Jarre and Donna Summer's "I Feel Love" would both have translated into worldwide chart-toppers. More importantly, however, Blake also liberated the synth from the showroom and showman. Two tracks -- "Last Ride of the Boogie Child" and "Synthese Intemporel" -- were drawn from live concerts, an arena where very few onlookers are listening in on headphones and even fewer care how clever the musician is. The fact that flying bottles, cans, or coins interrupts neither performance testifies to that. There is nothing here which packs the sheer visceral energy of "New Jerusalem" itself, of course, but that's a point which Blake himself confirms, by confining the title track this time to a scant minute or two of oscillation, then slipping it nicely into a stick groove at the end of the vinyl. If listeners let their attention wander for a moment, it could play on forever. ~ Dave Thompson, All Music Guide
