The Sallyangie
Children Of The Sun

THE REVIEW

"Come lie with me and I will give you
Babies from a moonlit sea all shimmerin'
Cos I love you lover
I love you like I love the four high seasons"

This fairy tale takes place in the colorful woods of an imaginary Ireland, certainly dreamy, perhaps alive in the nostalgia and memory of two musicians who have never really grown up. Fairy tales are told around the fire, of course, and when Mike tells a fairy tale he prefers his faithful acoustic guitar while the voice of Sally, his little sister, reaches the tops of the trees with her gentle, imperceptible vibrato.

It's not for everyone. And it's certainly not perfect. But it is a tribute to storytellers, to the folksingers of the sixties who have gone out of fashion or just a little less trendy who love stories of ghosts, gloomy banquets on the water, and enchanted maidens on the castle walls. It's escapist music that takes you far away, to a world that may not even exist but in which it's easy to get lost. Hidden little masterpieces like "River Song" beguile and enchant, leaving a few seconds of admiration for the very pleasant folk arrangement by maestro David (Dee) Palmer.  The flute and metal strings, the sound of ethereal woods like forgotten traces in "Love in Ice Crystals" leave one bewildered, and one really feels like returning to the reality of everyday music. Really?

Yes. Returning to reality. But the desire then fades in a moment when Mike engages in acoustic interludes worthy of his years of greater fame (among them is also a highly enjoyable "Branches" that he will use inserted somewhere in the album Amarok). "A sad song for Rose" is another of these forgotten fragments, but perhaps remembered later also because they are present with the same notes in a less acoustic form in the famous Ommadawn.

It is a pleasure for the ears and mind to relax sitting next to Mike and Sally, holding blades of grass between your fingers that slip away as sleep and night are almost about to envelop us. We were children. We try to remember something. But everything gets confused as adults, then it is forgotten and so are these songs.

"I remember the breeze and the soft creamy cheese
That we gave to the doves on the lawn
But the grass was so green that it soaked up the cream
And the doves flew away and were gone
But I saw the smiles that were deep in their eyes
And I saw the joke was on you but I could not laugh
I went back to the grass and you came in a rainbow balloon
Who are you? Who are you?"