‘The Dream Of The Whale’ is the debut solo release from Karnataka man Enrico Pinna and as all good solo efforts should, it finds this renowned Progressive Rock guitarist venturing into (in this case oceanic) new waters. A one track, forty minute, instrumental offering may initially feel like an impregnable proposition, yet for this album being one continuous experience, it is actually as multi-faceted a guitar led instrumental and conceptual release as you could ever hope to find. 

Moods veer from up-tempo and Rocking in a loosely Joe Satriani kind of way, to more synth inspired almost Jan Hammer like sections, via some beautifully introspective passages which carry the atmosphere through gently arranged acoustic or even dark Spanish guitar atmospheres. There’s no denying that we are in “mood music” territory, yet what moods they are, with washes of sounds that wouldn’t be out of place on a Marillion album jostling with occasionally dreamy fare as some blossoming rifferama infuses vitality into the more laid back landscape. 

Throughout, it is easy to hear the “whale” in the title taking a lengthy journey full of wonder and beauty as well as danger and tragedy, and it is testament to Pinna’s skill that he delivers all of this without ever flirting with the “motivational/relaxation music” that this subject matter (delivered word free, as it is), could so easily have become. Instead this is an album which introduces a new, if not exactly revolutionary, perspective on the standard guitar album. 

If poised, yet varied instrumental music is something you partake in from time to time, then ‘The Dream Of The Whale’ will be an album to lose many an hour in.

Steven Reid