Birdy (upper Echelon Duet Book Dee Garcia

Peter Gabriel's first foray into soundtracks was for Alan Parker's contemplative film Birdy and is a successful companion piece, providing a backdrop that is moody and evocative. Nearly half of the album's dozen tracks incorporate threads from material found on Gabriel's 1982 Security set, including "Close Up," which makes use of keyboard passages from "Family Snapshot," and "The Heat," which is a reworking of "The Rhythm of the Heat" and builds to a frenzied percussive crescendo. Material specially written for this project includes the murky opening track, "At Night," the tribal "Floating Dogs," and "Slow Marimbas," a track that would become part of future live performances. The fact that Birdy comprises all instrumentals means that listeners whose familiarity with Gabriel is limited to "Sledgehammer" and "In Your Eyes" will be largely disappointed. However, its meditative nature makes it fine, reflective listening for the more adventurous.

By this time Charlie was confident enough to include four acoustic guitar vehicles - one ("Baby Please Don't Go") with overdubbed harp, one ("I'll Get a Break") from his old pal Will Shade of the Memphis Jug Band. The ensemble numbers feature a German backup band with expatriate Jim Kahr on guitar. A more expansive workout (than the Chicago BlueStars' version) on "Coming Home Baby" is nice, and "Cristo Redentor" (Charlie's fourth recording of the song, this time subtitled "Slight Return") gets a beautiful piano-harp duet treatment. Unfortunately the proceedings are sabotaged by completely inappropriate engineering - mechanical-sounding drums, tons o-reverb, way too much high-end.