Natural Elements was the second major label release by Acoustic Alchemy

Acoustic Alchemy

Acoustic Alchemy is an English contemporary instrumental and smooth jazz band formed in England in the early 1980s , originally fronted by acoustic guitarists Nick Webb and Simon James...

 from 1988

1988 in music

This is a list of notable events in music that took place in the year 1988.-January-March:* January 1 – André Rieu's Johann Strauss Orchestra plays its first concert....

.

The shortest of all of the band's albums, only comprising eight tracks, Natural Elements set out to show what the title suggests: the organic side to Acoustic Alchemy's music.

Points to note from this album include the title track, Natural Elements, which became the theme tune to long-running BBC

BBC

The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...

 gardening show, Gardener's World, and the re-recording of an early track, "Casino", now re-arranged to include piano and full percussion parts.

The track "Ballad For Kay" is dedicated to Nick Webb's wife, Kay.

Review

Not quite complex enough to be jazz, not quite mellow or ambient enough to be new age, and just a little too cerebral to just be pop music, Acoustic Alchemy's Natural Elements is its own little oddity. These tunes, based on the dueling acoustic guitars of Gregory Carmichael and Nick Webb, are invariably melodic, at times featuring a sort of folkiness that suggests Bert Jansch and John Renbourn's work in the Pentangle, and the mixture of acoustic guitar and synthesizers is not really that much different from what Vini Reilly was doing in the far hipper Durutti Column around the same time. On the down side, John Parson's production, which is heavy on his own synthesizer programming, is as slick as fiberglass rubbed down with bacon fat and causes even the most agreeable tunes, like the lovely "Late Night Duke Street," to slide away into nothingness after all but the most careful listens. A fine album, Natural Elements is nonetheless only for committed fans of the genre.

Track listing

#	Title	Writers	Duration
1	"Drake's Drum"	Webb/Carmichael	4:49
2	"Overnight Sleeper"	Webb/Carmichael	3:39
3	"Natural Elements"	Webb/Carmichael	3:55
4	"Casino"	Webb/James	3:51
5	"If Only"	Webb/Carmichael	5:17
6	"Ballad For Kay"	Webb	2:59
7	"Evil The Weasel"	Parsons	5:37
8	"Late Night Duke Street"	Webb/Carmichael	4:46