Craig Leon ‎– Visiting All Night Flight Records

Label: Arbitor ‎– ARB 1
Format: Vinyl, LP, Album
Country: US
Released: 1982
Genre: Electronic
Style: Leftfield, Abstract, Ambient

Atmospheric polysynthetics??  Bizarre, genre-dodging self-release from respected US musician, arranger, composer and producer Craig Leon via his own Arbitor label in 1982.  Aside from being crucial in launching the carers of Talking Heads, The Ramons, Sucide and more, Leon sought to explore his own brand of synthesiser-heavy conceptual folk music with his now revered two-part series Nommos / Visiting.  The producer learned of an ancient religious practice after visiting an exhibition relating to the indigenous Dogon peoples originating in Mali where recollections of visits from an extraterrestrial species are revered.  Imaging what music imported from an outer planetary species is a pretty well-worn pastiche within the realms of crusty, ‘cosmic’ 80s synth, but Visiting is still to this day too alien, too other to be lumped onto that pile.  It’s largely a reduced pallet of uber-stripped, repetitive Linn-drum rhythms amidst abnormal synth melodies and texture spread over a range of moods – ranging from the inquisitive opener ‘One Hundred Steps’ to the more urgent ‘Region Of Fleeing Civilians’ and ‘Details Suggest Fidelity To Fact’.  But its best when the machines are left to develop themselves, such as the quivering, slightly uneasy piece ‘Three Small Coins’ or the blissed-out ecstatic new-age closer ‘The Customs of The Age Disturbed’.  A genuine outlier and high-water mark within the vast canon of homemade synth music.. (NM/NM – with hype sticker)

Tracklist

A1 One Hundred Steps 5:54
A2 Region Of Fleeing Civilians 5:04
A3 Three Small Coins 6:45
B1 Visiting 6:12
B2 Details Suggest Fidelity To Fact 2:40
B3 The Customs Of The Age Disturbed 8:00