Warner Bros 1976 / Think Like A Key 2026
Leaving Eldorado to shop for joie de vivre in Schopenhauer’s ideas of mortality, British musician harnesses tunefulness in a fresh manner.
Stalking The Sleeper
Michael de Albuquerque arrived at a creative crossroads after he had quit ELO, so the bassist visited THE BEATLES press officer Derek Taylor to facilitate his next endeavor, a successor of sorts to 1973’s "We May Be Cattle But We've All Got Names" that projected the musician’s love of soul into prog and pop canvas. He needed the push, because “Stalking The Sleeper” would be different – fueled by family life he longed for while on tour, which made him jump the ensemble ship in the first place and brought the formula of “sleep is a fragment of death” formula to his mind. There was no further philosophy, however, behind the tracks forming the album originally attributed on its cover to ALBUQUERQUE, as if Michael and his friends were a proper collective. To a degree, they were, what with Frank Ricotti again directing things yet not letting the liberties of "First Wind" get in the way of melodic allure, but despite stylistic imbalance, de Albuquerque didn’t allow anyone to veer away from his vision.
The uneven results render this album a product of its era, although pieces featuring middle-of-the-road arrangements – such as the finely orchestrated “Just Your Love” and strings-drenched “I Gotta Woman” which exchanges Ray Charles’ rawness for a commercially sounding whiff of sweet funk or the warmly magnificent titular ballad where Michael’s mellifluous vocals shine – are offset by more experimental numbers that stood the test of time much better. Thus, the operetta-like “The Wreckers” shows his imaginative approach to composition in a new light, one-syllable words dictating the flow, yet the jovial “Patience Cousin!” doesn’t require lyrics, apart from funny spoken lines, to get histrionically eloquent, with de Albuquerque’s insistent rumble and strum providing a fertile playground for Mike Moran’s cosmic keyboards, Ricottti’s otherworldly vibraphone and Ollie Halsall’s spaced-out guitars. Still, “Say What You Want” – which reaches for a rhythm-and-blues, brass-plated edge and sees Ollie’s solo soar to the clouds – is arrestingly rough, as opposed to “Walking Out On Sunny Street” which serves as an epitome of ease or “Tonight On The Highway” which oozes chamber grandeur perfect for the record’s finale.
And the finale of Michael’s official solo discography, for in the fifty years that passed since “Stalking The Sleeper” got out the veteran hasn’t released a single opus under his name, which is why the majestic “Outside In The Rain” – a demo he laid down in 2001, with John Marcangelo whom Michael worked with in VIOLINSKI, a band de Albuquerque’s erstwhile colleague Mik Kaminski formed in the late ’70s – feels so welcome as a bonus cut. It picks up where this group’s instrumental flight of “Home To Tea” – attached here alongside the catchy “Silent Love” and “See You In My Pillow” from 1980’s “Stop Cloning About” – left off and suggests Michael de Albuquerque may have a lot of music in him waiting to be out in the open. There are both closure and opening now.
