Lenny MacDowell has spent most of his career balanced between smooth jazz and new age music; 1995's
Flying Torso is one of the albums where he falls squarely on the second half of that equation. Almost entirely beatless, with slowly unfolding melodic structures built on the barest minimum of chords and arrangements that set his flute in a soupy haze of keyboard drones and spare, echoey guitar work, with occasional cymbal washes and other bits of percussion shimmering in the middle distance. Many of the song titles have an Eastern tinge to them ("Mekong," "Bamboo Bridge," etc.), but there is little that's even remotely Asian-influenced about this work, unless you count some of
Ryuichi Sakamoto's ambient pieces. There's not much wrong with
Flying Torso, except for the vaguely cheesy and outdated synth settings on several tracks, which sound like they were cribbed off a circa-1987 Windham Hill album, but unfortunately, there's not much for even die-hard new age fans to enjoy here. ~ Stewart Mason