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All compositions by John McLaughlin

This is a sensational recording, both from a historical perspective and from a purely musical perspective. The groundbreaking work, laid out by McLaughlin and his Orchestra, apparently appeared out of nowhere. McLaughlin has almost single-handedly managed to invent the whole new musical genre (which never got to be properly named -- all the labels proposed over time, like jazz-rock, fusion, etc. couldn't really hit the mark.) The preparatory work that was going on for more than two years, instigated by Miles Davis, had flourished and took a definitive shape in this album.

Still, surprising as it may sound, this is not McLaughlin's best creation (I propose that his best work is Birds Of Fire which got released a year later). But it's pretty darn close to being one of the best recordings in recent history. If nothing else, the level of sheer energy captured on tape is still unsurpassed.
 

1. Meeting of The Spirits

The album opens with a blast. The first piece is also the best composition on the whole album, and it perfectly epitomizes the essence of McLaughlin's music and vision. His by now legendary Wagnerian pathos expresses the universal cry of a human soul. This cry runs so deep that it's almost inaudible, despite the deafening volume coming from the five brave musicians interlocking their horns.

The opening blast lasts for about five or six sustained chords that shimmer while Cobham frantically thrashes around, not sparing any piece of his elaborate drum kit. How exquisitely crafted are these harmonies -- completely elusive, ambiguous, both raising and falling at the same time, conveying exalted as well as agonizing feelings. Eventually, the exaltation settles for a minute, while the bass drums keep throbbing in the background. The mighty river starts its flow very slowly, creating barely visible whirlpools. McLaughlin's guitar delivers those famous foggy arpeggios. The huge, frightening machinery is starting to roll. Immediately, we are struck with a definite feeling that this elemental catastrophe is simply unstoppable.

When the bass and the drums join in, the ominous bouncy groove entices the violin to start with a very tense lick that rises and falls following the contour of the underlying pulsation. Soon the band picks up the pace, and McLaughlin rushes in with his haunting two-notes melody (playing simply a punctuated lick that consists of C# and E). After stating this melody several times, he begins to distort it -- strings are being bent to the utmost limit of their durability. Just before the strings break, McLaughlin eases up and unleashes his berserk solo.

Playing it at a blistering speed, John clearly delivers the most obsessive yearning for something inconceivable. He is rushing and pleading, he simply doesn't want to give up. Underneath, the unbridled rhythmic variety of John's phrases are relentlessly underlined by Cobham's empathic drumming. The tightly knit musical tissue, that's created by all five musicians working in lock-step, is nothing short of pure telepathy. Yes, indeed, here we are witnessing the real meeting of the spirits, and what transpires is truly surpassing any boundaries and limits known to our intellect.

Such an intense delivery just couldn't last any longer than what they've recorded here. The bubble bursts, and they all soar to the stratospheric heights. Suddenly, all the barriers are gone and they have entered through the gateless gate. It's pure bliss; there is nothing to explain. The guitar and the violin play the blissful melody in unison and then split to follow their own unique nature.

Now the euphoria subsides and they are back to everyday life. The river runs deep again, getting bouncier and bouncier with each new turn. Hammer is starting to carve his carefully designed phrases on electric piano. The guitar and violin join him playing the counter-melody. This soon grows into a complex and elaborate ornamentation. The arabesque lines swiftly played by John and Goodman cannot completely cover the deeply felt longing that Hammer is playing bellow. This finally prompts them to repeat the simple two-note melody. Then, another ascent to the blissful opening in the stratosphere. The unity is achieved again. This time, the differentiation that follows the short bliss of singing in unison is somehow more fierce, devouring any remaining traces of intellectual interpretation.

For a moment, it looks like the river runs dry. Everything hangs in suspension, everything is quiet. But it is only a deceptive calm preceding the storm. Before anyone had the time to catch their breath, the mighty river bursts out with all its accumulated power. This time, it is much more resolute. The sad phrases coming from the violin underline the all-sweeping consequences of our spiritual vows. The violin reaches the screeching heights, conveying once again the telepathic, extra-sensory perception. This makes our hair stand on its end. The band fades out.
 

A sudden push, a sudden burst of noise and activity, wakes us up. Splash!  we fall into the stream of everyday events. The new day has dawned, and we must get up and function.

But the big burden is pressing hard in our chest. It's the burden of an elusive dream that we've been dreaming and weaving the whole night. We now find ourselves carrying it around.

Just as this burden becomes too heavy for us to bear, wonderfully new and undefiled rays of sun appear and we breathe a deep breath of relief. This is what John's and Jerry's guitar/violin unison sounds like. Bright red-yellow rays of sun tickling our whole body. Everything wakes up and the blood starts collating in our veins.

Still, the mood is ponderous and drenched in emotion. As the melody rises, the pain and sorrow seem to get elevated to an ever higher vista. Finally, the tension breaks and John jumps in with one of his most emotional solos. The fat, juicy tone of his Gibson carries with it tons of sustain, creating a vivid impression of a crying soul. He quickly works himself up into the highest possible frenzy, playing the finger-breaking licks up and down the guitar neck. The fuzzy tone gets smeared over it, so it feels as if he is soaring above the ground.

When the lamenting of the guitar breaks down, the whole band joins in a remarkable, bouncy middle section. A simple, elegant melody is played three times, and then Jerry takes over with his diabolical violin solo. The violin squeaks and screeches, playing some real rough double-stops, while in the background the band is going berserk. The excitement reaches the white heat intensity. At that time, the middle melody returns three times, executed even more ferociously than the first time.

Everything breaks down and the band falls back into the opening groove. This time, the mood is even more teary (thanks to the special "watery" sound effect coming from Hammer's electric piano).

Slowly, everything fades out.
 

The first one in the series of the legendary Mahavishnu raves (and quite possibly the mother of all raves), this piece opens with some fierce drumming by Cobham. In the background, McLaughlin is fueling the pace with his chainsaw-like outbursts of raw, anguished riffs.

McLaughlin interrupts the flow of this torrent by executing a precise lick rehashed from his contribution to Miles' "Jack Johnson" (later on, he will carry this lick to its higher ramifications in the "Mind Ecology" on Natural Elements) After him and Billy repeat the whole pattern once again, he plays a little 'teaser', announcing the hurricane that's coming around the corner. The guitar wails, and squirms, strings bent to maximum. All of a sudden, an abrupt and disjointed break -- a choppy lick which immediately opens into the totally different landscape.

A handsome ostinato, played by the bass and the violin, introduces the stretch reserved for prolonged jamming. Goodman jumps in first. This time, his violin gets a similar 'teary' sound treatment, reminiscent of Hammer's 'teary' keyboard sound from the previous composition. However, this is totally out of context in this piece, because nothing is audible but the pulsation of the raw energy. No room for subtle emotions here!

Jerry gets enough time to really play to his heart's content. His virtuosity gets to be showcased in a real breathtaking manner. The ending of his stretch is announced by an awkward little snipped played by the electric piano, introducing the main melody for the first time. Then, the guitar joins in, this time much more assertively. Now is the time for Jan to speak his mind.

Rather than trying to out dazzle Jerry's virtuosity, Hammer makes a much wiser choice. He starts by simply sticking to the underlying ostinato, but quickly shifts gears towards producing the unexpected sound effects, sounding as if he's swallowed some magic concoction (coming from a B production movie, like "Flubber") The bouncy, irresistibly funny burps and gargles are a delight to listen to. They also make intelligent comments on the whole craze that's unraveling here. When the last bubble has been regurgitated by his keyboard, the band abruptly changes direction and shifts into an overdrive.

McLaughlin kicks in, sounding like a herd of stampeding elephants. It is hard to imagine the excitement, the raw energy and the devastation that his guitar brings into the open, without actually hearing this piece. As the underlying pulsation is starting to get tighter and tighter, the guitar is being simply carried away by the enormous tsunami. But, not without a fight. McLaughlin's fingers travel across the fretboard with frightening speed, his lick are torturously repetitive, and with each repetition they drive the nail harder into our skulls. Eventually, they resort to repeating the middle melody, each time extending the number of repeated licks, until the listener feels that something must be wrong with the sound carrier (I remember the first time I heard this, I thought that my stylus got stuck in the vinyl groove!)

But, the madness is not over yet. Everything converges to one spot, with the guitar angrily beating the simplest possible power riff, while Cobham going berserk on his drum kit. This leads to the opening duel, only now it is even more heated than it was at the beginning (if one can believe that this was possible). Finally, the band joins in to conclude with the jittery, angular fragment of a melody.
 

A perfect, and the most extreme contrast to the previous composition, this pastoral piece consists of the musings, seemingly unfocused, by the trio of guitar, violin and piano. Oddly enough, this low volume acoustic rendition manages to somehow retain the same air of intensity as "The Noonward Race". How is this possible, you may ask? Beats me!

The calm and meditative atmosphere is just a backdrop for some of the most intense burning on the acoustic guitar ever recorded. McLaughlin simply assaults his guitar, almost to the point where you feel that a string or two must break. Goodman's violin playing is indeed idyllic, very emotional and warm, while Hammer's grand piano (overdubbed) supplies a magnificent waterfall of pure heartfelt prayers.

The whole structure is very loose, rambling and blabbering like a mountain brook. Never before or after has McLaughlin attempted to create such an original piece of pastoral music (his "Thousand Island Park" from Birds Of Fire and his "Pastoral" from Visions Of The Emerald Beyond explore completely different venues of acoustic expressiveness). As the title of this composition sublimely suggests, this exploration is about the impossibility of certain human states -- there cannot be any lotuses on Irish streams, and yet... he can truly see them. This impossibility is mesmerizing, and we can feel this in their beautiful music (for a very interesting and unexpected angle on this composition, contributed by Patrik McArdle, click here).

It is characteristic of this piece that it represents the disjointedness of the inner state of mind of its author by its equally disjointed musical structure. Separated into several clearly outlined "episodes", this composition always retains certain tentative feel of not being quite sure where it wants to go. This structure provides a perfect vessel for McLaughlin to carry out his blinding torrent of gushing emotions.
 

A mirror song of the "Meeting Of The Spirits" (this mirroring made more sense in the original packaging, where this composition opens the side 2 of the vinyl record). In here, a dramatic transformation is depicted, probably resulting from the insight gleaned from the foretold 'meeting'.

The pace is much more hurried than in the "Meeting Of The Spirits". The piece opens with a busy, thunderous drumming, something only Billy Cobham could deliver. If listened at a sufficiently loud volume, his bass drums threaten to shred the woofers. But, if you ask me, it's a risk worth taking -- the only way to really experience this album is at the volume levels higher than usual.

In the second part of the drumming intro, the tambourine joins in (probably overdubbed by Cobham), which gives the whole hurried feeling an additional boost. McLaughlin and the rest of the band break in, playing a riff that closely mimics the drumming pattern. They insist on repeating the riff over and over, until the hectic tempo reaches an impasse, and the rhythm section dissipates, flying through the air like crash dummies when released upon the impact.

McLaughlin and Goodman then join forces in support of a typical early Mahavishnu melody that sounds like a crossover between the "Meeting Of The Spirits" main melody snippet and the introductory melody of "Dawn". Also, it is important to note that the tonal palette of the guitar/violin unison is identical to the palette on the above mentioned songs.

As soon as that melody is stated, a new, ascending melody follows. This time, it sounds similar to the middle section melody of the "Meeting Of The Spirits". The same yearning, agonizing pain, the attempt to reach the salvation. The final, triumphant cry of the guitar/violin duo opens up into the free form forceful solo by McLaughlin.

This is McLaughlin's longest solo on the whole album. When viewed in its entirety, it is truly a remarkable thing. During this solo, John can be seen stepping over some of the roughest musical terrain ever conceived. No wonder his lines are so jagged, disjointed, to the point where we can almost hear his ligaments and bones cracking under the pressure. If we follow closely his elaboration of the basically simple, bare bones riff, it will be that much more formidable to see how many inventive lines he was able to muster from something so simple. But, in order to accomplish that, he was forced to engage in the toughest manual labor on his guitar -- we can hear him cooking and steaming, panting and trying to catch his breath. John is right in the middle of this volcano, taking care of things at hand like only he can.

We must not overlook the marvelous contribution by Rick Laird, whose mind-blowing bass lines serve to propel McLaughlin to the ever higher levels of improvisation. Laird's bottom-line pulsations are very palpable, swinging like an ominous pendulum, taking everything along in their sweeping movement. Even Cobham's stubborn torrent of odd-metered grooves are bent around those bottom-line pulsations.

When finally, completely out of breath, McLaughlin collapses after conquering his demons, the mixture of the melodies played in unison (described at the beginning) resumes, and then the whole band drifts into a different terrain. This time, the groove is less gloomy, it is bouncier and very joyous. Gradually, Hammer's keyboards emerge from the sound melange, carving brightly outlined, long winded melody. As his melody wiggles and bounces off the rhythmic patterns, the band fades out.

Similar to the previous piece, this composition is also some sort of a mirror song, this time it mirrors the second song ("Dawn"). And also, as in the previous case, this piece elevates the tension of the original song that is mirrored to a higher ground.

Both this song, and its mirror song, deal with the problem of delusion (if you recall, "Dawn" depicts the pain of the struggle in trying to wake up from a seductive, but harmful attachment to the phantom world of a dream). In this case, the title is even more explicit -- Maya is a Hindu goddess of delusion. She weaves the seductive web of deceit, from which it becomes almost impossible to liberate oneself.

The opening chords sound much gloomier and more onerous than in "Dawn". The distortion level of the guitar tone borders on sheer ugliness. The harmonies are dissonant (although loosely based on the perennial 12 bar blues progression), to the point of breaking the tonal mold. The intro drags on and on, creating a frustrating, unpleasant atmosphere. The drums and the bass eventually join in, only to amplify the discord and the overall ugliness.

When the melody begins to shape up, it sounds very torturous. Clearly, it's that ever-present yearning melody, only this time it can't really aspire, it is easily dragged down into the mud. After several attempts to soar, the melody nose-dives into the dirt, bringing everyone with it, and the band locks into one of the dirtiest, grittiest honky-tonk grooves. Rock on!

Now it's Goodman's turn to show how sticky, slimy and alive his violin can really get. He plunges into this primordial slimy mass with all his being, and with complete abandon. Using his wah-wah pedal, he delivers what could possibly be one of his best solos ever (quite reminiscent of Miles's electric trumpet work on his ode to ugliness, "Live/Evil"). This segment illustrates one of the most stellar aspects of the legendary Mahavishnu raves. The barely controllable situation is amplified by Goodman's ferocious thrashing. Everything gets to be violated here: the tonal center is gone, the tone is distorted beyond any recognition, the snake-like wiggling of the bold intervallic leaps clashing head-on with the supporting melodies played by the guitar and the keyboards, while the rhythm section is on one of its most fluid trips -- they keep changing the meter almost ever couple of bars. Any form of politeness has been long ago forgotten -- everyone in there joyfully steps on everyone else's toes. But the overall result of this chaos is magnificent.

After Jerry's sleazy rave, everybody picks up the simple trailer melody and joins in one more time for a round of die-hard rocking, before the burst of awakening rips the whole charade to pieces. Well, they've rocked the boat too hard this time!

McLaughlin appears out of nowhere, playing the most sobering guitar licks imaginable. He cuts through the crap like a knife cutting through butter. The rocking pendulum pattern is still discernible underneath, but is now transformed into a much jazzier groove. Cobham is doing a marvelous job supporting McLaughlin's tour de force. As for McLaughlin himself, it is absolutely impossible to put his determined, single-minded musical statement into words. There simply isn't anything I could compare it with. It can only be understood by hearing it.

Finally, the whole band joins forces (and there is even some overdubbing) to create a post festum melange of juxtaposed patterns that borders on cacophony. This hot, steamy jungle of cries and shrieks reaches a full climax just a second before everything falls apart. The last thing we can hear is a single grotesque note coming from a plucked violin string. Quite an appropriate ending.
 

Contrary to what we might expect, this song is not a mirror of the third song from the side one ("The Noonward Race"); rather, it reflects upon the fourth song from the side one ("Lotus On Irish Streams"). This time, the intensity is toned down in favor of the more introspective search.

The simple arpeggio, introduced on the guitar, provides the underlying pattern that will stretch throughout the whole song. At various times, various instruments will comment on this pattern, trying to analyze it, to embellish it, or simply to rip it apart. This musical exercise showcases some very well thought out playing, primarily by Cobham.

Still, it's the weakest (by far) composition on the whole album.
 

The most frantic piece on the whole album (and in the whole of McLaughlin's recorded career), this is an almost perfect mirror of "The Noonward Race" from side one. This may not become apparent at first (especially since this is a much more condensed and distilled rendition), but after you get to be familiar with both pieces, try singing some of the solos from "The Noonward Race" in your head -- before you know it, you'll catch yourself humming the solos from "The Awakening"! The similarity is uncanny.

The piece opens with what sounds like a jumbo jet taking off. The searing, smoking sound is coming from the guitar/violin/keyboards/bass quartet playing this ascending pentatonic lick at a finger-breaking velocity. This lick is also backed up by Cobham's maddening drumming. A short interlude on the drums lets everyone catch their second breath before they unleash another assault. Then, the violin solo ensues.

While Jerry is playing his brains out, the underlying tempo is not showing any signs of letting up. The sound of his violin is identical to the violin sound on "The Noonward Race", and the phrases he's playing are very similar in both pieces. Only in this song, he plays it with the double speed.

Jerry's solo is very short, and before anybody expects it, the break-neck frantic melody is back. After repeating the melody, the band relaxes the strenuous approach and slips into a more comfortable bouncy groove. This serves as an ideal backing for Hammer's 'Alladin's Magic Lamp' solo. The sound of his keyboard is very oriental, and as the solo progresses it gradually deteriorates to the point of turning into the screeching noise at the very end. Meanwhile, Cobham is intensifying his pendulum pattern. The overall impression is a middle of a hectic day in the bustling airport in Calcutta.

After Jan's solo, they play the melody again. Then, John makes his reprise of the elephant herd stampeding (see the description of "The Noonward Race"), only this time it is played so much faster that it sounds like complete madness. What John is playing in this solo is sheer passion. We can almost see his fingers flying over the fretboard at blinding speed. This awakening brought with it the release of much more energy than anyone believed was humanly possible.
 

Again, they replay the melody, and then they back out to let Cobham do his solo bit. What a marvel of a drum solo that is. Succinct and to the point, he manages to reiterate the complicated melody in this painfully short solo. Finally, everybody returns for a grand finale, where they unleash the most distorted, searing sound when they take off and disappear out of sight, up, up, high in the sky.