A longtime drummer for British rock & roll pioneers
the Shadows, as well as a highly regarded television and film composer/arranger and a mainstay of the KPM and Bruton Music production libraries,
Brian Bennett ventured into disco and funk for a handful of albums during the late 1970s.
Voyage (subtitled A Journey into Discoid Funk) was his contribution to the original wave of the space disco subgenre, appearing soon after albums by French acts like Rockets, Droids, and
Space, as well as
Meco's inescapable discofications of the music from
Star Wars. Opener "Voyage" immediately captures the wonder of the space age, opening with an epic, brassy lead before launching into a driving disco beat and bubbling synths (programmed and played by
Francis Monkman), as well as
Alan Jones' funky bass lines. A few other tracks sound like variations on this template, but the results are dazzling, particularly the airy, swirling "Pendulum Force." While
Bennett's subsequent album for
EMI, released under the project name Heat Exchange, would feature material more explicitly designed for dancing,
Voyage is more atmospheric, and really more of a commercial version of his privately issued KPM work. This is most evident in the slow-burning smooth groove of "Solstice," an instantly familiar-sounding piece that, like much of
Bennett's work from this era, has been sampled countless times by hip-hop producers. "Air Quake" shakes things up a bit, marrying choppy, fusion-like drum breaks to pulsating sequencers. The calm, reflective "Ocean Glide" concludes the album with a peaceful soundtrack to the journey back home to Earth. [Cherry Red's 2021 edition of
Voyage includes a second disc, featuring 7" edits of two songs as well as previously unreleased work-in-progress mixes of all six tracks from the album.] ~ Paul Simpson