YES guitarist STEVE HOWE is without doubt one of the most respected exponents of the instrument in the world today. His precision and individualistic musical dexterity is unique. His style of playing virtually uncopyable.
Turbulence, his first solo effort for eleven years, is self-produced and features the likes of fellow YESer Bill Bruford on drums and ex-ULTRAVOX ivory tinkler Billy Currie. It displays a myriad of various musical moods that ultimately form an 'expression' of Howe's inner-most feelings translated through the talent he has at his fingertips.
Describing each individual piece is pointless as the listener is invited to take their own trip towards their own musical self-awareness.
Suffice to say titles such as Running The Human Race, The Inner Battle, and Sensitive Chaos, with its Union style hookline, give a good indication of the album's aesthetic direction.
Instrumental albums are regarded by many as only appealing to somewhat of an elite audience, and in many ways they probably do. But as each day throws up another handful of technically brilliant six-string slingers, each with their vice for fitting in as many notes into a millisecond as they possibly can, an album like Turbulence demonstrates that STEVE HOWE and his contemporaries retain that organic originality that no man-made musical production line will ever create.
Musically we're not talking' hit singles, TOTP appearances, etc. - that's not the point here. Vocals play no part. Howe makes his guitar speak and sing its own songs far more expressively.
Mark Crampton
Riff Raff
March 1992
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