"Listening to the Wildlife" - The latest in the Esoteric Records reissue campaign of Anthony Phillips' back catalogue brings us to the Wildlife album. Review by Alan Hewitt.

Another in the superb reissues by Esoteric Records, Wildlife is a fitting memorial to the late Nick Gordon, wildlife photographer extraordinaire.

Expanded and including much new music from the various wildlife programmes which Ant and Joji Hirota contributed to which invariably featured Nick's amazing camera work. The album really is a travelogue taking us from the depths of the ocean (Jurassic Shark) to the depths of the Amazon Rainforest (Creatures Of The Magic Water/Secrets Of The Amazon) to the English countryside (Secrets Of A Norfolk Wood).

As you would expect, with music specifically designed to work to visuals, not all of the music here works as well as it would if the visuals were present. However when it does, the results are quite astonishing and the new mixes are equally revealing with much extra detail.

The extra tracks bring in from the cold many of the tracks from the various projects omitted originally for one reason or another. Perhaps the one which will cause the greatest excitement is the final track: The Victor's, the co-write Ant did with Mike Rutherford for a TVS equestrian broadcast. Don't let that distract you from the rest of the music however as there is much highly enjoyable content to be found on these two discs accompanied as always by a superb essay by Ant's archivist Jonathan Dann.