Track Listing

1. Kingdom Hall
2. Checking It Out
3. Natalia
4. Venice USA
5. Lifetimes
6. Wavelength
7. Santa Fe/Beautiful Obsession
8. Hungry For Your Love
9. Take It Where You Find It

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #158553 in Music
• Released on: 1997-06-16
• Number of discs: 1
• Formats: Original recording reissued, Original recording remastered

CD Description
The most commercially accessible of Van Morrison's '70s albums, WAVELENGTH is not an artistic compromise, but rather anexpansion of Morrison's sound beyond the blues-based, horn-band approach. With the keyboard work of Camel's Peter Bardens and The Band's Garth Hudson, the arrangements take a steptoward rock's electronic future without breaking Morrison'swell-established ties to it's past. Basically a continuation of the ideas explored on the previous year's aptly titled A PERIOD OF TRANSITION, the album relies largely on groove-heavy '70s-style R&B tunes that overflow with soul, like "Hungry For Your Love" and "Take It Where You Find It". The title tune, which proved to be quite radio-friendly, points the way to new pop directions.

Customer Reviews

Classic upbeat Morrison
Few artists are as prolific as Van Morrison, but similarly very few are as diverse in their output. Morrison fans will already be aware of this, but even fans like me can be surprised (or sometimes even let down) when buying some of his back-catalogue. In crude but effective terms I divide Morrison's work into "sombre" and "upbeat", or whatever terms you prefer to describe that kind of division. Basically, albums such as "Inarticulate Speech of the Heart" and "Astral Weeks" would be the first category, and "Back on Top", "You Win Again" and "Wavelength" would be the latter.

"Wavelength" falls into my preferred rough category, in that it features no 15 minute songs of atmospheric but sometimes tiring music and Morrison lamenting exile, lost love or whatever else. This album is very upbeat and exciting from the start, with "Kingdom Hall" a classic riff up there with Morrison's best. Closely followed by "Checking it Out", which has a cheeky piano riff I can only describe as 'bouncy'. "Walking in Venice" is perhaps the most enjoyable song to feature a chorus with no actual words in it ('Dum diddy dum dum diddy diddy da da'). Throughout the album the quality remains high, and almost all the songs being unusually happy lyrically as well as musically.

Most of the tracks are 6 minutes long or so, so you get a good deal of Morrison for your money, and this is of the very best quality. Although decades old now, "Wavelength" stands up to the modern ear as well as "Back On Top" and "Days Like This", and, I think, comes out better than Morrison's slightly derivative "Down the Road".

If you're collecting the back-catalogue, this is certainly one of my favourites and I recommend it highly.

Get on this wavelength
Overlooked, underrated. What can you say about such a wonderful album? This for me is up there right behind Astral Weeks. Perhaps people overlook the less obvious mystical qualities it has. "Venice USA" is dismissed as trite because of the dum diddly dum dum diddee diddee da da backing vocals but if you just lie back and let the sound wash over you it takes you higher and higher with its hypnotic insistence, sneakily sliding up the scale to the point where it overwhelms. Amazing, and Van goes with it getting more involved as the pulse drives on. "Do you hear me now?" he sings, and judging by reviews in the music press the answer is generally "sadly not". "Lifetimes" is Van's homage to friends and lovers met in previous lifes, down the stairway of reincarnation - meeting the same souls, together, over and over. Nice idea. "Listen to the music inside" he sings "can't you hear what it says to you". Van is at his most honest, pure and open on this album, exhorting outer quiet, inner voice. "Santa Fe/Beautiful Obsession" is another of those tracks that start in one mood, reflective in this, to another place by the end, "it's more than a song to sing" "the more you do it, it becomes a beautiful obsession". The brilliant final track "Take it where you find it" contains at least three distinct themes and melody lines which segue in and out of each other, the final transition from "I'm gonna walk down the street until I see my shining light" to "lost dreams and found dreams in America" raises the hairs on the back of your neck. I recommend anyone who likes Van at all to give this a real good repeated listen, preferably loud and in the dark. Van is in a wondering but accepting upbeat mood and the singing and playing complement each other beautifully.

ROCKING GOOD TIME
Wavelength from 1978 is an album of melodic rock and soul that ranks amongst Van Morrison ten best albums. Kingdom Hall is a full bodied rock song with a great hook and rousing vocals, Checkin' It Out is a lilting mid-tempo ballad with baroque instrumental passages, Natalia is a meandering love song, Venice USA has a bouncy reggae rhythm, lovely organ and an addictive sing-along chorus. The slow song Lifetimes with its unusual instrumental mix is quite special whilst the title track with its handclaps and R&B vocals is Van at his most soulful. I love the guitar textures on Santa Fé/Beautiful Obsession, the brooding vocals on Hungry For Your Love and the intricate piano rolls on the mournful Take It Where You Find It, the most spiritual song here. Wavelength may not be a classic in the league of Astral Weeks, Moondance, Tupelo Honey or Hymns To the Silence, but it still deserves its five stars through and through.