Bennett, Brian – Voyage: A Journey into Discoid Funk [BLUE/BLACK SWIRL VINYL] - New LP

Percussion (Brian Bennett, The Shadows), bass (Alan Jones, the Shadows), and synthesizers by Francis Monkman (Curved Air...just before Monkman do the soundtrack for "The Long Good Friday."). 

Trying to latch onto Star Wars/disco might have sounded like a great idea in 1978, but by the time that decade was over, they likely realized that was a huge mistake.  (Of course, if this was recorded now, it would just be called electronic music.). Considering two members were from the mostly instrumental rock back The Shadows, and Monkman was from progressive-rock outfit Curved Air, they probably would have done better calling this instrumental progressive rock.  As one reviewer says, this didn't have a chance with punk taking over, but that's just silly.  Yes, the disco-sucks movement was going to drive nails into disco's coffin (but of course, disco would just continue using slightly different approaches and calling it other names), but punk was not yet having a huge effect on pop and rock music.  I always knew that was true in the USA, but thought, punk was probably actually taking over in the UK...but someone who was actually there in the UK pointed out that the biggest name in punk--The Clash--was hugely successful, relatively speaking, filling halls in the UK (and successfully touring the US!), but while the Clash filled halls by the time 1978 rolled around, just down the street, the reunited Yes was selling out an arena for 3 nights in a row!  

"Isle Of Jura’s first LP reissue, the highly sought after ‘Voyage – A Journey Into Discoid Funk’ by Brian Bennett originally released in 1978. A cosmic disco classic completely re-mastered from the original master tapes by Matt Colton. Brian Bennett is best known as the drummer of the UK band The Shadows and as a composer of music for Films and TV. During the 1980’s he was awarded two Ivor Novello awards and wrote music for a wide range of programmes including Dallas, The Sweeney and also the Royal Wedding of Prince Charles and Lady Diana Spencer. In the 70’s Brian released four albums, the last of which was ‘Voyage’ released in 1978 & his first concept album.  This was music to complement or invoke visual imagery and I had this idea of the Earth in space, it was around the time of ‘Star Wars’ so this space fantasy thing was very much in vogue. I was also listening to a lot of Brian Eno and I wanted to see if I could write some material along those lines. I was given the go ahead by the label DJM and the concept was a voyage around the Earth. All the drums and synths were played live and we were experimenting with all the latest sounds and technology” ‘Voyage’ manages to combine rock, funk, disco, prog and library sounds to create a record that could have been created 30 years later and is now rightly recognised as a pioneering classic."