Lovely Thunder
Harold Budd
with Michael Hoenig
Produced by Harold Budd
Track listing
- The Gunfighter
- Sandtreader
- Ice Floes in Eden
- Olancha Farewell
- Flowered Knife Shadows (for Simon Raymonde)
- Valse pour le Fin du Temps
- Gypsy Violin
Recorded & Mixed at Metamusic Productions, Los Angles - except track 5 (recorded at the Cocteau Twins studio in London with Simon Raymonde, mixed by Robin Guthrie.)
Original release - 1986
The title, Lovely Thunder, evokes an apt impression of the music, as if a dark storm were on the horizon across a placid lake, dramatic, beautiful and dark. Ice Floes in Eden in particular seems to draw from, or inspire the album's title. Lovely Thunder is a dark work with some of Harold Budd's richest textures.
We hear the beginings of 1988's White Arcades and hints of the Moon and the Melodies, which was recorded the same year as Lovely Thunder even shares a track with the Moon and the Melodies, here titled Flowered Knife Shadows and retitled Memory Gongs with a slightly differnt opening and a different mix.
A careful listen reveals a suprising diversity to the music, though this comes at the slight expense of a more cohesive work.