OUTER BEAUTY, INNER MYSTERY (1989)

Cassette album
Cover photograph by Morgan Fisher

UK: Dawn Awakening DA-030

1. Outer Beauty
Part 1: The Breathing Earth
Part 2: Waterglide
Part 3: Slow-Moving Clouds
2. Inner Mystery

A little-known cassette-only album released by an independent British new age label, this features on side one three of Morgan’s expansive tape-echo soundscapes, which re-appeared later on his "Flower Music" album. Side two featured a remarkable 20-minute piano improvisation which builds gently and inexorably, sounding as if it was composed rather than improvised. Morgan has said that when he is truly in tune with the moment, the music flows as if it was being transmitted through him from an unknown source. Certainly this long opus has a clear melodic development, almost like a symphony, placing it on a plane far above the rather dull and limited genre generally known as new age music - on a par with ECM rather than Windham Hill. This track surely must be re-issued at some point in the not-too-distant future.