To say there is a lot going on with Leslie Mandoki’s supergroup Mandoki Soulmates, would be a huge understatement. The international collective of musicians playing behind the Hungarian producer, songwriter, vocalist, and percussionist across what has come to be a 30-year + project creates a genre-defying dozen tunes on A Memory Of Our Future.
“Blood In The Water” features a considerable contribution from Ian Anderson’s flute (and some of his backing vocals). “Enigma Of Reason,” with its Caribbean-influenced beat, features the battling of blistering runs between guitarist Al Di Meola and horn man Randy Brecker.
Some of the solos stretch on a little too long, and perhaps Mandoki could have cut down these jazzy-prog tunes and still made his point clear. Then again, when you have this caliber of players, you want to get as much out of them as possible.
Anderson leads again on the “Devil’s Encyclopedia,” another rumination, as many here are, about present culture. Overall, this is a concept album, but it does take a bit of mining the lyrics to figure that out, which I’m still not sure I did.
The album’s title track is a definite highlight. With Mandoki’s percussion pushing us along and Berklee College of Music bass department chair Steve Bailey playing fretless bass, Brecker’s trumpet, Di Meola’s mellifluous acoustic guitar runs, and Anderson’s flute, this is surely the centerpiece of the album.
An interesting side note is that A Memory Of Our Future was recorded, produced, and mastered to vinyl lacquering in analog. One can’t help but applaud Leslie Mandoki for putting this project together, grabbing such a wide range of killer talents, his attention to detail and crafting a collection of thought-provoking, instrumentally rich songs.
~ Ralph Greco, Jr
