Quantum Jump

By 1975, Rupert Hine was already beginning to gain credibility as a producer and session musician, but he had also released two of that era's most cryptic solo albums in Pick Up A Bone and Unfinished Picture. The latter in particular demonstrated that Hine had few peers when it came to shaping elaborate instrumental textures and atmospheres without departing from a song-based format. Most listeners' overriding feeling on hearing them, however, was one of perplexity, and sales were correspondingly minuscule. But throughout his career, Hine has shown himself perfectly willing to rein in his more experimental tendencies for the sake of shifting a few more units. In the '80s, for instance, he largely subsumed the complexities of his three solo albums for Island beneath the hard and shiny surface of his faux band, Thinkman. And that's pretty much what he did in 1975 when he formed Quantum Jump, which is not to say that the band represented a blatant bid for chart success -- far from it. But in stark contrast to the somewhat austere Unfinished Picture, Quantum Jump's first album wasn't afraid to get funky.

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