RAY RUSSELL — Dragon Hill (review)

RAY RUSSELL — Dragon Hill album cover Album · 1969 · Fusion Buy this album from MMA partners
3/5 ·
Sean Trane
Second “solo” album from the British guitarist, even if the line-up is presented as a line-up as a quartet, Dragon Hill was released in early 69 on the Columbia UK label and had a “global” artwork, which seemed to announce the future solar artwork of his later R&R album. Featuring the usual suspect of Rushton and Mathewson, the quartet also had Roy Fry on piano, but there were a few guests involved as well, like Beckett and Dobson.

Strangely enough, despite a rough or difficult start, DH is probably one of Russell’s most accessible albums. After the first dissonant minute or so, Fry’s piano brings the 12-mins title track to a more conventional ground, but Russell’s guitar insists on being limit-screechy, and once the horns intervene briefly, the “tune” detunes itself again and will play with the frontier of dissonance for the remainder. The following Something In The Sky is definitely more standard-y with a contrabass solo and has big-band-like horn response in the end. On the flipside, Paper-back features some electric piano (not a Rhodes, imho) and sounds a bit more fusion while White Snow is really laid-back, thus making the contrast with the much more up-tempoed closing piece Mandela, where Fry gets a big share of the spotlight, despite the reurn of the horn section.

More accessible than the R&R album, DH is often on the limit of the dissonant frontier and loves to challenge you and test your sonic sanity. Like most Russell album, I don’t think it’s an essential listen, but certainly an educative one, but whether you’d get enough mileage out of it to have it in your shelves is really up to you.

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