MYSTERIOUS BARRICADES PRIVATE MUSIC PLAYBOY MAGAZINE- 1989 BY VIC GARBARINI

EX-POLICE GUITARIST Andy Summers Mysterious Barricades (Private Music) should come as a pleasant shock to those who dismiss all New Age instrumental music as self-indulgent cosmic doodling. Summers’ guitar-and-keyboard opus recalls a less abstract but more spiritually vibrant version of Brian Eno’s otherworldly soundscapes. Gentle arpeggios create a kind of celestial geometry through which flow smears, blurs and other guitar graffiti similar to those of his work on the Police’s Tea in the Sahara. The result is as artful and graceful as a Zen painting. Elsewhere, Summers creates an almost holographic space populated with achingly beautiful chords that hang suspended in a numinous dreamscape that seems more real than life. This is music perfectly balanced between active and passive listening-the sort of thing you put on at night while working or resting. A genuinely healing musical experience.