Ian Anderson-Walk Into Light (1983)


 

Artist: Ian Anderson

Title: Walk Into Light

Label: Chrysalis

Format: CD

Cat #: 50999 0 70406 2 7

Year of Release: 1983

Country and Year of Edition Issue: EU 2011 Remaster

Listed Condition VG+/VG+

Sell Date: 5/17/24

Sell Price:$13.99

Discogs Last Sold:1/10/24 VG+/VG+ $10.87

Low: $10.87

Median: $14.05

Average: $13.55

High: $15.22

Current low price: $10.87

Current Number on Sale at Discogs: 3

Have/Want: 20/3

Where Sold: Eddystone, PA

Time it took to sell: 2 months

Where and When Bought: Facebook CD lot

Gwiz-gau Letter Grade: C-

Sad To See It Go: No

Ian Anderson's debut solo release can be looked at in different ways.  The 1980 Jethro Tull album A, was originally to be released as an Anderson solo album.  However, this is really part of a trilogy of 1982-4 albums featuring keyboardist Peter Vettese.  

The jocular liner notes on this edition written in December 2010 by Anderson himself give an explanation for this foray into early synthesizer and away from Martins and Marshalls and the like.  They had been using keyboards as far back as Thick As A Brick in '72, and there was a gleeful joy in using these early gadgets that predate sequencers and so forth.  The desire to be on the forefront of something new!  The first of these releases was Tull's 1982 album The Broadsword and The Beast.  There was still more of a Rock led-element appropriate for their audience.  This keyboard deep dive into his newly bought home studio gear melded traditional equipment with the new tech.  This was continued over with Tull the following year on the Under Wraps album, whose tour I witnessed in Worcester.  Looking at the setlist, I see the opening title track "Walk Into Light" made it into their set back then.  Vettese made his last appearance on 1989's Rock Island, an album I have managed to ignore as completely as Walk Into Light.

I hated Under Wraps with such a passion.  I haven't reviewed it lately, but seeing Martin Barre recently throwing a few tracks into his set last year for it's 40th anniversary made me realize the songs weren't as awful as my teenage brain remembered.  However, Barre rearranges everything live on guitar and while his singer replicates Ian Anderson faithfully, there is nary a flute to be found on his stage.  A rockers dream reinterpretation.

This album is a rockers nightmare, although again not as bad as I might have thought back then if I had paid any attention to it.  The prog synths of 1983 still sound like background music on television sports programming from that era although Anderson is Anderson.  The flute and acoustic guitars are still there if a bit buried.    I'm on my third listen and nothing is sticking out for me enough to hate it the way I hated yet remembered the tracks on Under Wraps in preparation to see the band live in 1984.  I force fed albums to myself if I was seeing a tour back in the days where it was expected that the album would be featured regardless of whether it was selling.  As it should be, as 100% nostalgia is boring.  I'd rather be bored with tracks from a new album then greatest hits all the time.

A stitch in time saves nine after all.

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