AndyF - Chronos Child

Hear The Track Here

Seeing as how I have been completely laid up for the past two doing doing nothing but honking into a handkerchief and spluttering like a man drowning (Ed: just a seasonal cold, tut tut poor reviewer), it seems appropriate that I should come riding back into the fray on orchestral wings. On second thought, after that sentence, maybe I should just go back to bed. Andrew Foyston (to give him his full due) has been a on-off presence on my screens for a few years now and - bless him - is one of the very few artists that come by and make meaningful comments about my own material. As usual, that curries no favours but Andy has beena round long enough to know that golden rule too well. More especially when we are talking about a form of Modern Classic which generally has the allure of a cat which died a couple of weeks ago. Andy has the distinction of slipping one or two very good tracks past me in a genre that I truly don't like and that's no bad thing.

The last time I reviewed him was with the Dard Productions track Stand The Test Of Time (April 2008) and Dard mainstay Denis Couture features on this track too. Essentially Chronos Child is a track written about Andy's new grand-daughter; piano score was supplied by Denis and Andy did the rest. As a world recognised musical philistine I am well aware that there is a larger market for Andy's style of music, than there are old curmudgeons who incessantly moan about it, but let me just add - in my favour - that a lot of this genre probably more belongs in New Age than in any other bracket. Whatever you do, don't get me started on New Age music or we'll be here for years. What saves Andy time and time again is that he is an extremely competent musician with a feel for the right tone, texture and arrangement as Chronos Child so amply demonstrates.

It's pretty much a piano solo, but orchestrated in such a way that the piano integrates with the backing track perfectly. Much more positive, as always with this musician, the sounds, instruments and technique is clean, clear and warm. Considering the kind of music we are discussing, those three elements are key to my enjoying the peice, and given that it's almost seven minutes long without them would have been a heavy slog. Andy is, IMHO, one of the only people I have heard online who is worthy of the Modern Composers tag used over at MP3 Unsigned because his music has a quality, a fineness you are not likely to hear to many other places. Chronos Child is a peice in point, this is a track that really SHOULD be heard live and in a concert hall, even I would appreciate it more and I am tainted by years of rock abuse.

Extremely pretty classically inclined instrumental. Highly Recommended