Sean Trane
Last instalment of the Go "project" and from far the most unrepresentative of the concept, just take a look at the lake artwork and compare it with the preceding Go projects. Of course by 77, Go had had many coming and going, but Shrieve and Schulze are still there as his (obviously) Stomu. While it's reputed to have some disco-funky feel (and rightly so), the album is not completely devoid of merits, but you'll have to search for the few moments.
Starting with the instrumental bruitage intro (Prelude), you jump in the funk of Seen You Before, where you'd swear you were on a Parliaments album, but the ending with those string arrangements is rather good and make a solid link to the much better Madness where the solos are soaring over a solid down-to-earth groove induced by the solid rhythm section. Although the following Mysteries Of Love is a tear-jerker, one cannot say that it is not well arranged and produced. ADM playing a quiet solo (I'll be damned, didn't think he was up to it) and the vocal duet between Roden & Linda Lewis works well and maybe the strings are a bit over-powering, but it's hard to dislike this kind of track.
On the flipside, Wheels Of Fortune starts on a much faster note, but it sounds just like Mysteries (same duet & strings formula) and is no less successful. Most of the tracks remaining are similar-sounding, with this funky & strings, seemingly out of Motown, the exception being the closing Ecliptic, which closes the album much the way Prelude had opened it, atmospherically.
Although a far cry from his earlier experimental albums, Yamash'ta proves that he's an eclectic artiste, unclassifiable.