East was formed by Janos Varga (Guitar), Péter Móczán (Bass) and István Király (Drums). In the first 5 years, they did concerts with a lot of excellent musicians, especially in jazz clubs and universities. In the 70's, East played real progressive instrumental music full with rhythm changes and symphonic sounds. At that time, they could not release their music due to several different reasons. Thanks to the Japanese King Records, which licensed their music, the whole world got to know East and Janos Varga. Somehow everybody knew, that there was a rumour about a project, which had not been released yet. Now Janos Varga recorded the long awaited CD where past meets the present. Next to the typical 'old' themes, one can listen to the new compositions.
The album opens with the long suite "I must be going" (19:39) which can be divided into six pieces. The first one "I must be going" (5:48) opens mysteriously with synths and guitar sounds and develops into a beautiful slow song with for me an "East" European sound. It has a great mysterious sphere and sounds sometimes like Pink Floyd or SBB. Maybe it just sounds like East or is even an old East song. But I don't know the works of East. In this piece we here the first great synth solo of Zoltán Lengyel, the After Crying member who is giving his cooperation to this project. "Flight of mind" (3:05) starts up-tempo with drums a rock-guitar and a synthesizer. It's a dual between the guitar and synth. After that the piece sounds slow and heavy. Then keyboard sounds bring us to "Prayer" (1:11) a beautiful guitar solo on top of keyboard layers. Then the tone of the suite changes to a happy tune. This piece is called "The joy of starting" (5:38) and I like the sound of Janos guitar. Zoltan is playing his second keyboard solo. After this nice track the music becomes again mysteriously and spacious. "Mysterious stars" (3:22) The last piece of the suite is "Welcome to the jungle" (1:15) and Janos gives us another guitar solo.
"Matching souls" (5:33) has a rockier refrain I don't like so much but most of the track exists of guitar solos and again delicious synth solo's. Also we hear some piano work. The next track "Sunrise" (4:46) is again slow and we here again nice guitar work. There are a lot of keyboards in the music of this project. The combination of that with the guitar solos of Janos works very well. I like this track very much. "Hard life" (3:34) is again up-tempo, in the first part we here a more rocklike guitar sound of Janos and the music gives a good impression of the title. In the second part again a fantastic keyboard solo. Then one of the best tracks for me "All I can give" (5:19). It opens with beautiful keyboard sounds and then a piano theme on top of the keyboard layers. A slow song, and after a while Janos plays a beautiful guitar solo with a lot of emotion. This is my music, and the title is again telling what we are getting here. A really beautiful track. And then the last track of this album which is also the title track "The wings of revelation" (8:16). Mysterious keyboard intro and then up-tempo with great drum work of István. The music stays very up-tempo and Janos is playing a heavy high-speed aggressive guitar solo. The piece has also a symphonic character and is the Magnus Opus of this album. In the end the guitar is also more symphonic and beautiful to me. The piece ends with the same mysterious keyboards.
I think this is a good album and all the East fans must listen to this one too. I like the slow and symphonic pieces most. The spacious and Floyd like guitar sounds I prefer against the more rock-like sounds. But that is a personal matter. There are a lot of great keyboard sounds and solos on this album too. Janos himself is also playing some keyboards. But I want to mention Zoltán Lengyel in particular. This guy is doing a great job on his keyboards.

Douwe Fledderus