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Salient. Victoria University Student Newspaper. Volume 38, Number 17. July 16, 1973

Snowflakes are Dancing - Tomita — (RCA) Review copy courtesy Pye Ltd

Snowflakes are Dancing - Tomita

(RCA) Review copy courtesy Pye Ltd.

Pseudo-avante-garde synthesizer muzak for the Crusader Walk shorts set. That about sum up this record.

Tomita is a Japanese guy who likes twiddling knobs on synthesizers, and here he has given us his interpretations of some of Debussey's finest works. It makes for nice, relaxed listening, but there's nothing of real substance. He doesn't alter or jazz-up the pieces, preferring to play them 'straight.' Parts of it, in fact, are quite beautiful, though this is more due to Debussy than to Tomita

Which brings me to my major point: Records like this are totally unnecessary. Anyone who knows his way around a Moog could have done this, and yet it gets hyped-up as the last word in progressive music. It makes nice listening, sure, but so do the originals-better by far than the renditions here.

An inoffensive, easy listening album. That's its problem. Tomita s next effort will be Mussorgsky's 'Pictures At An Exhibition.' As a long-standing ELP freak, I will approach this with caution.

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