Review Summary: An excellent debut solo album from Genesis’ keyboardist. Probably his best solo work.
“A Curious Feeling” is the debut solo studio album of Tony Banks and that was released in 1979. The line up on the album is Tony Banks, Kim Beacon and Chester Thompson.
It was recorded after the ninth studio album of Genesis “...And Then There Were Three…”, in 1978. It was released after the departure of Steve Hackett from Genesis and was recorded between Genesis’s eighth studio album “Wind And Wuthering”, in 1976 and that ninth studio album. Tony Banks was the first of the three remaining members of Genesis that released a solo work. However, it never reached the success that Mike Rutherford and Phil Collins reached with “Smallcreep’s Day”, in 1980 and “Face Value”, in 1981, respectively. Still, the other ex-Genesis band’s members had already released their debut solo studio albums. Hackett released “Voyage Of The Acolyte”, in 1975, Peter Gabriel released “Peter Gabriel (1 – “Car”)”, in 1977 and Anthony Phillips released “The Geese And The Ghost”, also in 1977.
The album’s cover design was made by Hothouse and the cover painting is named “Wuluwait – Boatman Of The Dead” and was painted by Ainslie Roberts who was an Australian painter, photographer, writer and commercial artist.
Banks wrote all the tracks on the album, and he also played almost all the musical instruments on it, such as, the keyboards, the guitars, the basses and the percussion. He chose to collaborate with him two other musicians. For the drums and percussion, he chose Chester Thompson which is an American drummer and session musician who played before with Weather Report and Frank Zappa, but that became better known because his usual musical collaboration with Genesis, after the departure of Gabriel and when Collins assumed the vocal role on their live shows. Thompson became the usual touring drummer of Genesis. On vocals, he chose Kim Beacon who was a member of “String Driven Thing”. “String Driven Thing” also featured the violinist Graham Smith who was member of Van Der Graaf Generator.
The story of “A Curious Feeling” is a science fiction novel based on the book “Flowers For Algernon” by Daniel Keyes, who was an American writer of science fiction and fantasy novels. It was written in 1958. Algernon is a laboratory mouse which was subject to a surgical intervention to increase his intelligence by artificial means. The story touches many different ethical and moral themes such as the treatment of the mentally disabled, the conflict between intellect and emotion or happiness and hoe events in the past that can influence the personality of a person later in his life.
Most of the time, the music is dominated by Banks’ fantastic playing, especially the Yamaha electric Grand piano, which was at the time a very popular instrument, can be heard on a lot of the tracks. Also the layers of string synthesizers, which were done to create an orchestral feeling on the instrumental pieces, sound very impressive. Also Tony’s efforts on the electric and acoustic guitar are worth listening to. It included also several awesome synthesizer solos, really.
The first track “From The Undertow”, the sixth track “Forever Morning” and the ninth track “The Waters Of Lethe” sound very impressive. They’re three fantastic and superb keyboard symphonic progressive instrumental pieces with the same quality of what he composed for Genesis. This is Tony at his best. The third track “The Lie” and the fourth track “After The Lie” which are practically a single track, the seventh track “You” and the last track “In The Dark” are all superb progressive songs that could be part of any of the best albums made by Genesis. They have beautiful keyboard, guitar and drumming works and Kim Beacon’s vocals are really very good. The second track “Lucky Me”, the fifth and title track “A Curious Feeling” and the eighth track “Somebody Else’s Dream” aren’t symphonic songs. They’re musically different tracks with other musical influences. They’re more crossover songs made by a multi-instrumentalist than by a keyboardist. However, they have great individual performances by Thompson and Beacon. Finally, the tenth track “For A While” is a calm ballad with a pop rhythm more in a Collins’ musical style. This is the song I like less.
Conclusion: “A Curious Feeling” faint elements of Genesis’ early progressive sound, making of his debut release the strongest in his musical catalogue. Of his solo work I only know until now, “The Fugitive”, “Bankstatement” and “Still”, besides “A Curious Feeling”. The final result on “A Curious Feeling” was a fairly safe album that, with few exceptions, almost comes across as a truly Genesis album from that era. There are many songs on the album that show Bank’s potential as a solo act and his great capabilities as a songwriter. Perhaps that’s not so surprising to Genesis fans who love “...And Then Were Three...”, where I include myself, that it was so heavily influenced by Banks. I know this album since it was released, and to listen to it again after all this years passed, it’s a kind of a rediscovery for me. I also know that this great and fantastic album has also a very special place in Tony’s heart, even after all those years have passed.
Music was my first love.
John Miles (Rebel)
