Travelogue

[Mick Mick]

We have to be brave to love and when we do, we sometimes cling. I know I can to Joni. I apologise, but I'm only human. She is, after all, the greatest love I never met.

So anticipating Travelogue I projected all kinds of stuff. I was so sure that Amelia, for one, would swirl to the sound of ascending siren-choirs linking me back to olde trackes of longe agoe and that I would sway, cinematically. Aahh.... I put such a lot of my own stuff into that wait.

Hearing the promotion files over my tinny computer speakers, I was gutted. Those projectors spluttered and died and I perceived, in the darkness, my ether-friend, weak-voiced and frail and being devoured by tight-knickered, pompous British "lets do pop" orchestrals and diddly-diddly sycophants. A light glimmered with Dawntreader and then spluttered again on Hejira. I had to leave it (funny that, I've just heard Hejira again, painted with a colour and depth, and communicated wth an impatience to move on that leaves the first version looking like a pencil study!)

And all I had for strength was the memory of the shocks of ALL her albums at first sound.

Last night I listened to the rest, leading with Slouching Towards Bethlehem. Lucky me! It gave me new ears for the orchestra. It lets them shine and do their orchestra thing powerfully! And now I'm hearing so much more, on every track! The day is moving on but I can't... seem to ...leave...my... computer.

Damn you Nonesuch for trailing it in this way! Damn me for being so greedy as to grab the files and let myself listen to them on crappy speakers. But! Travelogue is growing . I'm at the point now where I recognise there isn't a wrong move on any of the songs I've heard, just beautiful brush strokes.. And it's big, it's big, it's BIG!!!! It's art and it's the best art, because I can now see it (and so will you Vince, it's just one listen away)

And Joni, when you sing ' I need your love' on Chinese cafe, I hear you. And I send it, not clinging now but fresh, and breezing, through a clear blue sky.

This album is a triumph.

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