Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

The once seasoned traveller had no choice but to listen to the sounds that were coming from all around them in which to remember certain events and their feelings and reactions to them if they wanted to put them into the context of a piece of art in which to highlight the gift that nature and humanity provides in serious abundance.

For good or bad its possible now to add your own soundtrack to life, whether on the go about town or making the most of the once in a life time opportunity to see the world for its own dynamic wonder, the ears are attuned to something else rather than the sound from the exterior and artistically it somehow makes life less interesting.

However for The Oran Project, fronted by Dunfermline’s own Dougie Gordon, the thought of such inspiration going to waste is arguably almost akin to allowing a musical instrument to gather dust in an attic or basement, both are surely crimes against art.

The Oran Project’s self titled release contains two instrumentals of such quality that the bug of travel should surely bite deep into the veins of anyone taking time out to hear the songs on offer and the infectious desire of placing one’s foot into a different set of sand take hold.

There are many songs that have this effect, Steve Hackett’s Last Train To Istanbul provides the soul with escapism for example, but The Oran Project’s Morocco and Paris take the brain down charming Gallic alleyways and the smell of imagined Arabic coffee filtering in side cafes and the general noise of a place at play, at work and at sleep is beyond what could be expected.

It is with the roll of fortune that such songs get recorded, the muse of a million places on Earth vying for attention and for their stories to be heard, if more people listened instead of just listening then the world would have more to take in as in the quality of Oran Project’s Morocco and Paris. A superb addition to the world of the instrumental classic!  

Ian D. Hall