Fusion threw up some weird hybrids in the margins around the Mahavishnu cult. One such was Love Cry Want, a regular trio of Nicholas, Joe Gallivan and Jimmy Molneiri augmented for this 1972 recording by Larry Young's funky Hammond. Rhythmically-based, the music revels in jazzbo experiment and mystical hokum.

Young is always value for the money, and his contribution here lifts what might otherwise have been a rather immature fusion session. While Nicholas' guitar solos are uneven, he's interesting enough and seems happy not to hog the limelight on an album which compares very favourably with what McLaughlin was doing at the time. His "prototype guitar synthesiser" is actually just a heavily processed electric guitar, and its sound is now creakily dated even while Nicholas urges the music into the space age.

The nearest comparator is probably what Abercrombie and Surman were doing in the same year -- a grainy, Coltrane-inspired jam which would quickly become unfashionable. Not of the same musicianly standards, this is a more quirky record, and a highly enjoyable one for that.

[ by Richard Cochrane ]
Rambles: 2 March 2002