Odyssey by Ian Boddy

This was my first album on CD, released in the autumn of 1989 on the Surreal To Real label founded by UK musician John Dyson. Stylistically, tracks such as Amazonia and Lammergeyer follow on from the ethnic influences of Jade, but the album follows several other musical paths too. These range from the cosmic splendour of the opener Hyperion, through to the cinematic epic title track and closing out the album with the rocking Chameleon. What is certainly at the forefront of this record is the orchestrated layers of melody. Indeed, it is probably my most overtly tuneful release, and it’s certainly good to revisit it after all these years.

Technically, it uses the same computer software recording setup as on Jade, with the usual polysynths from the likes of Yamaha, Roland, and Korg that were prevalent at the time, plus of course, heavy use of sampling. Live drum overdubs add some extra zest to some of the tracks, and mixed down at a professional recording studio gives the overall album a very polished feel.

Sargasso and Atlantis are a couple of bonus tracks from around the same period, the late 1980s. The former is an unreleased track, whilst the latter was rescued from a cassette in my tape archive and was a piece I performed at a couple of concerts around this time (featuring my sampled vocals reading from an Edgar Allan Poe poem).

Ian Boddy
Composer, sound designer, DiN ambient music label owner
& analogue synth aficionado

ianboddy.com
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