Customer Reviews
What polarised opinions? - By: John Ferngrove, 17 Aug 2008 
This album does take some getting used to. And you do have to take some space from it & go back again with fresh ears before you are able to sort out what's new. The Meeting of the Minds - The Making of Floating Point [2008] DVD, which is awesome, helped clinch the album for me. The first thing you have to deal with is the overwhelming drums & percussion throughout. At first you can't help but think that this is some kind of mistakein the mixing, but persist & you can get used to it. It's a deliberate decision that ensures that the whole album operates at a very high energy level. John's albums have always been about joy & ecstasy & seldom on the mellow side of those values. The album is meant to be rhythmically overwhelming, from start to finish. So dig the drums & percussion first & then revisit it to get at the more melodic aspects. John takes a quite humble approach here, his midi guitar, whilst irritating to some listeners, is definitely him taking a back seat so he can showcase the awesome talents of the Indian guest musicians. In a way its like he wants to show the world what an awesome modern musical force India is gearing up to be. Almost like a legacy thing.
I won't go further into details of tracks & instrumentalists cos they are made clearin the blurb & by other reviewers. All I would say is this is not 'just another' east-west-jazz fusion album. It's a new kind of fusion that requires a new kind of listening. So be humble & put on fresh ears & have patience because every bar of this album is overwhelmingly intense. It just doesn't conform to the fusion formulae that we've got comfortable with.
No no no - By: The Truth as I see it, 15 Jul 2008 
First off I love John's music over the years, from Extrapolation, with Santana, the Mahavishnus, Shakti etc etc he has shown himself to be the most innovative, challenging, spiritual living musician. BUT this is just awful, late '70's-standard jazz-rock noodling, lift music & a couple of numbers that sound like demos off my daughter's old CasioTone. I know Mr McLaughlin can deliver so much more...
Brilliant, Musically Profound and Mindbending - By: Music Fan, 12 Jul 2008 This is an absolute masterpiece from John McLaughlin. It seems from some reviews here that some fans expect John to continue Mahavishnu Orcestra. That has been done & put to rest. John McLaughlin , like Miles Davis is always striving ahead even if some are left behind. This happened as well when he created Shakti after MO.
On this album, the compostions are fantastic & its a big challenge to accomplish what John has donein the realm of "World Fusion". The guitar Synth work is fantastic, The guest musicians are absolutely stellar. I would advise against reading any bad reviews. Judge it for yourself . This is absolutely mind bending & cohesive musical work. Do check out the brilliant DVD that comes with the CD. Contemporary musicians like myself will try all their lives to make such a musical statement John McLaughlin: Meeting of the Minds - The Making of Floating Point
Where have all the other reviews gone? - By: Blistering Bob, 08 Jul 2008 
This all seems a tad bizarre. Several reviews have been removed..many which were less than favourable. And we're left with a rather one sided gusher ! What on earth has happened ?
Simply Brilliant - By: Steve Keen, 03 Jul 2008 You have to pay attention to a man who has two Miles Davis pieces named for him, but I was paying attention to John McLaughlin well before I realised he & Miles had even met. Backin the seventies, when he was to me what Clapton could only pretend to be, McLaughlin was renowned for white overalls, twin-necked guitars & his adherence to eastern mysticism, referenced by the strong, even at times all-pervasive, influence of Indian music on his work.
It is to that influence that this set returns, bolstered by an ensemble whose names suggest they, too, originatein the sub-continent. To call them backing musicians, however, is to totally misrepresent their role here. In many ways McLaughlin takes a leaf out of his old mentor's book, giving his collaborators centre stage for much of the time but making his mark more than felt when he takes the spotlight himself.
As is his wont lately, McLaughlin makes extensive use of guitar synthesiser throughout, but - call me old fashioned - it's the plain old guitar that stands out for me, nowhere more than on the final track, Five Peace Band (nice pun).
But because of the head he gives to the other players, it's their contribution that is really notable - after all, "John McLaughlin plays virtuoso guitar" is about as surprising as "Dog bites man". At times,in fact, the lead instruments seem to be the percussion.
This is evident right from the off, when a lyrical break on Soprano Sax by George Brooks is underlaid by Ranjit Barot's insistent, staccato drumming (hope I got the name right there - the credits are light blue on dark bluein an only semi-legible, microscopic script). McLaughlin soon takes over on Guitar Synth, & then he & Brooks engagein a call & response routine during which the drums never let upin their relentless attention-seeking, cutting across the serenity of the melody but never doing anything other than complementing it.
This continues on track two, Raju, which has a lick reminiscent of Layla. The other voice notable here is Hadrien Feroud's bass, with Louiz Banks on keyboards (I feel the words adorning the cover were intended to decorate more than inform; I found this name on an online review), laying down a rich canvas for the rest to decorate.
Elsewhere we have some cool playing on flute, nice vocalisations on The Voice, & even electric mandolin on Inside Out.
I'm not going to engagein any kind of discussion as to whether this measures up to other McLaughlin recordings. This is a great record & I'll be playing it alongside The Inner Mounting Flame, Qué Alegría & Trio Of Doom.
My big gripe, if you hadn't already guessed, is with the packaging. I'm not a big fan of cardboard CD covers anyway, but the least they could have done is to have provided some legible liner notes!
