Walking on a Flashlight Beam turns ten years old on October 13, 2024. This album has a special place in my heart, and I want to explain why. It was the first Lunatic Soul album that was released after I became a fan, but that is certainly not the only reason or even the main one. Of course, what I’m about to say are my personal observations, and you may disagree with me–but you’d be wrong. 🙂

I’m not going to talk about the songs, so if you want to read about those, I have a full review here.

When Walking on a Flashlight Beam came out in 2014, it was almost immediately recognized as something very special in the Mariusz Duda discography by many reviewers and fans. It was the fourth Lunatic Soul release, a solo project which originally was supposed to consist of only two albums (Impressions is an instrumental supplement), but at some point, happily for us, Duda decided to keep the project going.

It was an album that was made during a very dark time in Duda’s life. Personal and emotional issues weighed on him; and when he first went into the studio, things didn’t go well. In order to recapture inspiration, he had to re-adjust his thinking and change the ideas, the approach, sounds and mood. Originally there were to be guest musicians, but he abandoned that idea: only Wawrzyniec Dramowicz remained on drums. There would be much less of the lush orientalism of the first three albums, and much more in the way of electronics. Shifting creative gears worked because this masterpiece came out of it. And it is a masterpiece.

There have been three subsequent Lunatic Soul albums in the decade since, so how does Walking on a Flashlight Beam hold up?

WoaFB is one of those albums in my collection that is of such importance that I cannot play it very often. I feel that when I do play it, I must give it my full attention, to honour it with nothing less than my entire listening presence. I own a few other albums like that, but not many.

For me, it is the most inspired, the most cohesive, the most nuanced, and indeed most intellectual of the entire Lunatic Soul project, and perhaps of Duda’s entire output.* After ten years it has lost none of its power; in fact it has gained stature as the other LS albums have been released. WoaFB reached a pinnacle in terms of flow, vision, and thematic integrity that the other albums did not quite achieve. In the wider context, it pulls the first albums (LS I, LS II, and Impressions) together, and provides an anchor point for the whole project. It is an album that is much greater than the sum of its parts.

There are LS albums that I play more often, that I consider “favourites”: the astonishing Lunatic Soul I; Impressions; and the joyous Through Shaded Woods; but I will state outright that by any objective measures, Walking on a Flashlight Beam is the best. It is a true showcase of Mariusz Duda’s creative powers, an album where all the elements–the music, the lyrics, the mood and atmosphere–came together in a perfect storm of inspiration.

*with the possible exception of “Transition II”, to which I have much the same response as WoaFB but this of course is not an album, and is a bit of an outlier in the LS canon.

There will be much more about this album in my upcoming book.