Clearlight Mosaique

Clearlight is a French progressive rock band from the 1970s, although their best known work was produced in England, and released by a major British record company. While progressive rock is an appropriate overall genre for the band, much of their work delves into other genres including psychedelic music, jam band music, symphonic rock, space rock, jazz fusion, and new-age music.

"Clearlight Symphony" is one of the finest progressive instrumental albums to emerge from the '70's. The genius of Clearlight's music rests in the hands of Cyrille Verdeaux who plays Grand Piano, Mellotron, organ and synths galore. "Clearlight Symphony" is one of the richest sounding space patrols you will ever encounter. Verdeaux's cleverly injects classical structures and instrumentation (piano) with fusion-like inspired parts (aka Gong) and occasional psychedelic guitar flare-ups. The sound is rich and full of color and texture with some superb melodies and atmospheres. Verdeaux is helped by well known guests such as Steve Hillage (guitars), Didier Malherbe (sax) and Tim Blake (synths) who add some great depth to the music. "Clearlight Symphony" is essentially 2 long (over mins) movements which both are killer and would make the perfect dinner music piece.

"Clearlight Symphony" is one of the finest progressive instrumental albums to emerge from the '70's. The genius of Clearlight's music rests in the hands of Cyrille Verdeaux who plays Grand Piano, Mellotron, organ and synths galore. "Clearlight Symphony" is one of the richest sounding space patrols you will ever encounter. Verdeaux's cleverly injects classical structures and instrumentation (piano) with fusion-like inspired parts (aka Gong) and occasional psychedelic guitar flare-ups. The sound is rich and full of color and texture with some superb melodies and atmospheres. Verdeaux is helped by well known guests such as Steve Hillage (guitars), Didier Malherbe (sax) and Tim Blake (synths) who add some great depth to the music. "Clearlight Symphony" is essentially 2 long (over mins) movements which both are killer and would make the perfect dinner music piece.

Clearlight Symphony is a progressive rock album released in 1975 on Virgin Records in the UK. It is the first in a series of albums by a project led by pianist Cyrille Verdeaux with the participation of other musicians, including in this case three members of Gong on one side, and two other French musicians, Gilbert Artman (of Lard Free and later Urban Sax) and Christian Boulé (formerly with Verdeaux in the band Babylone, and a later Steve Hillage sideman) on the other. Primarily psychedelic, but also serving as a forerunner of new-age music, the album's musical style manages to blend seemingly contrary elements: the symphonic rock concept is flexible enough to permit extensive jamming in both rock and jazz fusion styles.

Cyrille Verdeaux and Clearlight re-visit and expand upon 'Clearlight Symphony'. Totally new recording featuring a wide range of instrumentation. The playing of Didier (the only Gong member who has made it onto this release from the trio of Gongsters on the original) distinctively glows as always.

Essentially French keyboardist Cyrille Verdeaux and an ever-changing list of collaborators, among them Christian Boule and Gilbert Artman, Clearlight was among the most well-known French symphonic progressive rock bands of the 1970s. Their massive, occasionally psychedelic sound showed a different side to Verdeaux than his later, more new age records. One of the first bands signed to the fledgling Virgin Records in the early 1970s, Clearlight has been compared to such progressive bands as Yes and Genesis as well as more experimental groups like Gong. The first Clearlight album, 1973's Symphony, presents the band at the height of their grandeur, pursuing everything from modern experimentalism to more classically styled pieces. For the project, Verdeaux took on several members of Gong as collaborators. It was later re-recorded with a great deal of new material in 1990 and released as Symphony II.

Third album following the cosmic masterpiece "Forever blowing bubbles", "Les contes du singe fou" released two years later in 1977, shows a new direction in Clearlight's music. The music is now dominated by piano and violin. It results in a more classical feel and a symphonic jazzrock orientation to the music. Another new element is the omnipresent English vocals by Ian Bellamy: a half success, giving a more conventional style to Clearlight's music. A light cosmic touch is still present thanks to Tim Blake galactic synthe work and some instrumental moments remain quite good, despite the drum weakness.

Clearlight fourth album, released in 1978, one year after the disappointing "Les contes du singe fou" shows a more new age direction, as the beautiful cover shows. Like the previous album, it's a half success, actually an unequal album. The opener "Spirale d'amour" features Verdeaux pastoral piano work, nice melody but really too gentle. It may evoke children cartoon music! You can virtually imagine a gentle pink rabbit appearing.We're very far from "Symphony" or "Forever blowing bubbles" acid cosmic spacerock. "Full moon raga" is the long ambitious piece which actually saves the album. It's a very good jazzrock tune which may evoke Mahavisnu at times. Only the drum lakes fineness, but we're already in 1978, so this explains that…

Clearlight’s “Impressionist Symphony” focuses on the artistic style of impressionism, painting and music as well with a Ravel, Satie and Debussy influence merged with Cyrille Verdeaux’s progressive music experience and linked with the French impressionist school of painting. …

Les Contes du Singe Fou (roughly translated, Tales of the Mad Monkey) is a progressive rock album by Clearlight, released in 1976 on Isadora Records in France. Returning again to France, Clearlight turned to conceptual space rock with science fiction lyrics. (The lyrics do not have anything to do with a mad monkey, however.) Les Contes du Singe Fou is the only Clearlight album in which vocals and lyrics play a significant role. In reverse of the previous album, the title is in French, but all lyrics are in English. This is not apparent from the cover, which contains no song titles on the outside. English Lyrics with French translations are printed on the cover's gatefold. Musically, the album contains psychedelic, new age, and jazz fusion elements.