Steve Hackett finds elegance and mystery on Under A Mediterranean Sky

Under A Mediterranean Sky is an acoustic postcard from Steve Hackett’s travels

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Steve Hackett - Under A Mediterranean Sky
(Image: © InsideOut)

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Steve Hackett never lacks ideas for an album. This one has the master guitarist drawing from his excursions around the Mediterranean, for an acoustic record on which he plays not only guitar but also slightly more esoteric instruments such as the oud and charango.

Joined by keyboard player Roger King, flautists Christine Townsend and John Hackett, Malik Mansurov on tar, Arsen Petrosyan on duduk, and Hackett’s wife Jo helping out on vocals, Hackett weaves complex yet engaging music that evokes the romantic spirit of that part of the world.

This isn’t the type of album that has to be played constantly, but one to dip into occasionally, when there’s a desire to relax and lose oneself in a world far removed from the harsh realities of everyday life, with music doused in elegance and mystery.

Malcolm Dome
Malcolm Dome

Malcolm Dome had an illustrious and celebrated career which stretched back to working for Record Mirror magazine in the late 70s and Metal Fury in the early 80s before joining Kerrang! at its launch in 1981. His first book, Encyclopedia Metallica, published in 1981, may have been the inspiration for the name of a certain band formed that same year. Dome is also credited with inventing the term "thrash metal" while writing about the Anthrax song Metal Thrashing Mad in 1984. With the launch of Classic Rock magazine in 1998 he became involved with that title, sister magazine Metal Hammer, and was a contributor to Prog magazine since its inception in 2009. He died in 2021.