Checkfield - Reflections on a Decade
Gallery Records

A Compilation CD of the best from the duo of John Archer and Ron Satterfield who met at a San Diego college in 1970. "We saw eye to eye on a lot of theoretical concepts." Says Archer. "We equally enjoyed bashing our professor who was a purest in the classical sense and didn't believe that any other form should be allowed on the face of the earth." Interestingly enough, Checkfield were pioneers in developing New Age as a genre but also have a reputation of mixing a heavy classical mood to about half of their earlier material. This best of has a lot of variety Smooth Jazz, Pop Ambient etc. Checkfield's carefully-crafted musical masterpieces can conjure up feelings of intense joy and well being; Satterfield believes the product is an amalgamation of different elements. "We go through our lives taking in an incredible amount of information, through our eyes, nose, ears, etc, and eventually it has to come back out, maybe through a painting or an actor's role. Checkfield is about taking photos of these moments musically." After all four of their CD's have been deleted, it's a treat to hear this great retrospective. --by John Beaudin