Tabula I
Tabula II
Tabula III
Tabula IV
Tabula V
Tabula VI
Tabula VII

Smaragdine is the solo work of George D. Stanculescu, hailing from Romania, whose orchestral experimentation would be more familiar to the oldschool of early synthesizer forays in the circles of fringe neoclassicism. The Tabula tracks I through VII are in fact just facets of a single track, chapters of the short 20 minute piece, their style more than just each parts' decrescendos marking the changes. Elements of free-form jazz worm their way into lullabies, semi-industrial overtones to a march, Oriental facades; each track markedly individualised.

The album is marred by the unfortunate quality of the instruments, which despite the congeries of orchestra sections breathing more life into a work that could have lamented purely on keyboard-only yawns and moogs. The music can sound a little plastic at times, despite the obvious time it has taken Stanculescu, the composer for the short recitative. A large chunk of each Tabula's score would not surprise me to be found more in a Classical section than any other, yet the vocal samples and at times martial atmosphere would raise some eyebrows.

The release comes as a simply packaged CD case with repeated full colour artwork and stickered CDR.

NYR