Keeping the Aficionado theme going, this was a big Moonboots recommendation, way back when he first discovered the CD, which was originally released in 2001… I have to admit that when Moon sent me a track, Amber Whispers, I wasn’t completely convinced, but now that I’ve finally heard the whole album, I totally get it…  

Subtitled, Musical Poetry For Yoga, Colors Of Silence was complied from Wally Badarou’s unreleased archives to accompany a yoga instruction DVD made by French actress, Nathalie Delon – who at one time was the girlfriend of Island Records’ Chris Blackwell. However, the music contained isn’t really a meditation aid or tool. It’s a bit more pop than that. Where Were We, for example, has a tropical lilt, a relaxed reggae “riddim” reminiscent of Carly Simon’s Why, while The Lights Of Kinshasa is uptempo, organ-led sunshine-filled soca. Happy highlife. Both are full of faux flutes, and dancing, make-believe brass.

By Pictures Of You, less than halfway through, the album really hits its stride, and everything from here on in could have cropped up on a Jose Padilla Cafe del Mar tape. They’re all standouts. A set of wonderfully romantic mini Synclavier symphonies. Expertly summoned from simple layers of countering piano, synths, and keys. In places the pieces recall the cinematic scores of Eric Serra, and, in other, those of Vangelis. Assembled from gently ascending melodies, birdsong, harp and hang drum-like harmonics. Pizzicato patterns. Soft synthetic sighs. Much of the LP is beatless, but Oriental brings the savannah sunrise percussion and polyrhythms back. An echo of Wally’s mid-80s masterpiece, Echoes, and his perhaps most famous track, the marvellous, much-sampled, Mambo. 

The vinyl pressing of Wally Badarou’s Colors Of Silence can be ordered directly from Be With Records.