Ralph Atkinson - Dreamtime

Hear The Track Here

I'm glad I am not the only one around that is totally confused by the labels that people arbitrarily slap on their tracks, or indeed the overwhelming flood of genre, sub-genre, sub-sub genre and so on until everybody pukes with the nauseating list mentality that infests the internet. Its easy, right? Music=Good. No Music=Bad. Music then breaks down into two further categories, good music or bad music and that - as we all know - is a matter of preference no matter what people like me have to say on the subject. 'I'm not really sure what genre this should be under' Ralph informed me, 'I put it under Adult Contemporary because I'm an adult' he added which I found myself nodding with agreement.

Although I was surprised to see that he would admit to being an adult, for sure most of us don't. Annnnnyyway, the reason for all this dainty stepping about is contained in the two words mentioned above; Adult Contemporary. He is obviously aware of my centuries old animosity towards the genre in question but still wants to trick me into hearing it. Well, I'm not. I'll review something else instead. Dreamtime is 'a song inspired by tribal wisdom' and that sounds much more my style o' t'ing, so I snagged that (Ed: he's delusional again, this is filed under Adul...errr...THAT genre and is the track Ralph asked for) thinking it would be all worldly and caring.

Over the past year or so Ralph Atkinson, a Canadian musician, has thrown some choice morsels our way although - for me anyway - it's always been his more traditional forms that worked best. About the one thing Dreamtime is not is traditional, and btw it's nothing like Adult Contemporary either so y'all can stop fretting and get on with your knitting. I always read comments on tracks that I review (after I've done the review though) and on balance I agree with most of the comments made about this track - and that's a rare thing. There's a very, very distant Pink Floyd feel to this track that is the initial hook in, but there is much more than that once you really start to open the track out - always a good sign in my books. What starts off as a fairly conventional rock song becomes, given more than a play or two, an excellently observed and presented track whose beauties I am still plumbing.

Slow yes, but Rock and Highly Recommended into the bargain.