Aurora Borealis with Mitch DeMatoff, USA 1982, by request

Much like the paint by numbers kits we had as children that allowed us to replicate beautiful fawn-filled paintings with crusty unnaturally poor borders, like the American colony of Iraq today perhaps, this is play by numbers fusion: sure there's the synth soloing, the electric guitar twirling about, the odd chord changes, the prime number time signatures, but some kind of creative spark is missing, as you can tell when you hear the entirety of side one-- then, turning the disc over, at the b1 position, horrified you find a cover version of Lady, the godawful pop song by Lionel Ritchie-- I mean, what??

Information here. 

Let's see what Tom had to say:

The AC described it to me as: 

"Obscure fusion platter from this (presumably) Los Angeles based group led by keyboardist DeMatoff. Largely excellent high-flying instrumental fusion in the classic RTF mold. The last couple of tracks in particular are absolutely blazing, one of which features a guest spot by Bunny Brunel. Strongly recommended to fans of stuff like Proteus, Spaces, Apprentice, etc.". And really that's all there is to say. I could throw in perhaps Child's Play as another reference, an album we featured recently here. As well as Momentum, Genre, and others of its ilk. It's on the border of fusion and progressive rock. It starts more in a typical early 80s jazz rock mode, but as The AC notes, it really picks up from there. There's some smokin' guitar leads here!

And he proceeded to provide it with a priority 2.  I'm not so sure about that number.  This is definitely not in the same fusionary league as Momentum's Introducing Brad Carlton, or Childs Play, or my old favourite Genre.

I thought the best track was In Search Of, located on side b right after the horrendous fusionoid rendition of Lionel Richie's Lady (which the guys apparently failed to notice):

Incidentally, I notice that Mitch DeMatoff had a great career in music and even posted some videos of the band on his site.  Many thanks to the artist for the history here!

The price of the record has not gone up as was predicted, thankfully.

What do you guys think?  I'd love to hear others' opinions.