Deja-Blues

by Diana PottsSteve Halpern's Deja-Blues is a reworking of his 1978 album From Hear to Eternity. This time around, Halpern adds guest vocals and has restructured the instrumentals to take the listener on even a further journey than before. As the album opens with the title track, a scene of sailing down a heat drenched, narrow tropical river in a boat is painted with Halpern's rhythms and the bamboo flute solos by Schawkie Roth. Ethereal vocals come courtesy of Melissa Phillippe, who contributes more to the exotic picture of a place somewhere between Morocco and Tibet. The last track, "Atlantis Rising," brings the listener to the exotic bright sunset that puts the untamed wilderness and the journey to an end. Though Halpern's work is nothing towards groundbreaking, it is a more rhythmic attempt at a genre that often acts as a lullaby, rather than an encouraging calm.