British jazz-rockers
Isotope's second album, 1974's
Illusion, is the sound of a band in flux just happening to stumble into their career peak. The quartet's original lineup had imploded after the release of their debut album, with bassist Jeff Clyne and keyboardist Brian Miller both out of the picture. Bandleader/guitarist
Gary Boyle nevertheless soldiered on, finding an unexpected treasure in part-time keyboardist/full-time dentist Laurence Scott, whom the axeman persuaded to swap molars for music, and pulling off a major coup by nabbing bass legend
Hugh Hopper, recently departed from
Soft Machine.
Boyle brought aboard his old pal Poli Palmer of
Family (the two had played together in folk-rock band
Eclection) to produce a record by the revamped
Isotope. Naturally, the unique sonic presence of
Hopper makes for the biggest difference between
Illusion and its predecessor; his trademark fuzz bass sound is one of the most distinctive musical fingerprints in the history of the instrument, and it can't help but lend a bit of a
Soft Machine touch to the proceedings. That's pretty much where the connections to the Canterbury school end, though. From the start,
Isotope's brand of jazz-rock was more terse and tough than that of their fellow Brits, more in line with what American peers like
Mahavishnu Orchestra and early
Return to Forever had to offer. Certainly
Boyle's fingers-of-fire fretwork -- a dominant voice throughout the record -- is spiritual kin to
John McLaughlin and
Bill Connors' contemporaneous work. Like the previous album,
Illusion boasts a bounty of balls-out fusion stompers full of electrifying solos, offset by a couple of quieter tunes that ultimately work up a fair head of steam themselves, along with a single acoustic cut. But the whole band contributed to the compositional process, and
Hopper's sensibility shines through here too, as his own tunes are arguably the most intriguing of the lot.
Isotope's third and final album wouldn't venture terribly far afield from this one, but
Illusion nevertheless remains the band's finest hour, and the inclusion of informative liner notes on Esoteric's 2011 reissue only adds to the experience. ~ J. Allen