"a two disc song cycle of surprising warmth and passion... Bruce is sensational, unforgettable.  He is impassioned, without losing his grip on the particulars of any song, and commands a surprising emotional range: this is the work of a mature artist, the speech of an honest voice... There is expertise in every atom of this music and detail upon detail of invention in each of its aspects and admixtures, but what skulls me about the album is the depth of feeling that emerges from the aggregate, how heartfelt and romantic it is..."
-Rafi Zabor, Musician Magazine

***** "Superb, an audio auteur's triumph of conception, execution, and perhaps most critically, production... Hanrahan has the guts to imagine what could work, and to make it work."
- Boston Phoenix


"a magic album... A totally indispensable, original record... It will move you, excite you, and literally change you..."
-Jazz Hot (France)

" Hanrahan has conceived an album that forms as coherent a whole as any record released in the past few years..."
- Boston Globe

***** "One of the best albums of the year (1983) ...s the title suggests, Desire Develops an Edge is the sort of album that's easy to get passionate about."
Considine, Baltimore Sun

".Desire Develops an Edge is one of the musical miracles of the year ... Nobody in rock and roll or jazz is making music with this kind of subtlety and breadth: nobody even attempts to.  Though we are inundated with claims of genius virtually every time a new talent appears, a claim seems justified now.  With Desire Develops an Edge, Hanrahan indeed appears to become one of the select few."
- Jeff Salamon, Street Music (Philadelphia)

"Mr. Hanrahan often gets something deeper and more structural on Desire.  Instead of writing a tune and lyrics, then deciding on a beat, he has taken a lesson from his Haitian and Cuban colleagues and learned to work his way up from the rhythm.  Not just any rhythm, either: he's after a fusion of Haitian, Cuban, Brazilian, salsa, rock and jazz syncopations that will register as none of the above... Interwoven throughout Desire are sequels to the tales of sexual conflict Mr. Hanrahan started on Coup de Tete along with border crossings, bilingual puns, a Yoruba legend, smoky bossa-nova romanticism and reflections on the making (and the financing) of the album itself - all subjects that can be connected somehow, in the crossfire of distinct but interlocking rhythms... Mr. Hanrahan's ambition seems to have infected everyone in his pool of musicians.  The all play as if they've found a brand new community - one where a
dance party has just begun."
- Jon Parales, New York Times

"Mr. Hanrahan is a genius of Latin rhythms... Desire will jump out of your speakers..."
-New Age
.
"Desire Develops an Edge is well-named; it is a seductive work, but one in which you  the musicians actually willing themselves to avoid the traps of habit... Bruce is a revelation.  Phrasing each song as if it were an interior monologue, shedding his arena-filling roar for a completely personal sound.  Bruce emerges as a remarkable gifted singer... Desire is the first Great Record of 1984."
- David Bither, New York Beat

"brilliant... One of the best records of the year..."
-Richard Gehr, Los Angeles Reader

***** "In a sense, the attentive listener can almost discern the aural equivalents of such filmic devices as cross-cut fade, dissolve and pan.  Shadows and lights, silence and sound, spaces and faces... Desire demonstrates that Hanrahan's vision is clearly in tune with the times."
-Gene Kalbacher, Jazziz

"Bruce sings like his heart and soul are at stake... Incessant, occasionally urgent, counter- and polyrhythms permeate all four sides..."
- Spectator Magazine, Raleigh

"Highly Recommended...Jackpot!  ...This record demands your attention."
-Editorial staff, Progressive Media New Music Report

"Desire is a tuneful and triumphant record that bridges the corporeal - intellectual schism that exist for many listeners just as it shatters the music industry commandment that the ghettos of rock, jazz and ethnic music cannot be desegregated.  Hail, Hanrahan!"
- Goldmine Magazine

"a multidimensional corps of rhythm, voice and emotion.  This EP plus LP deserves everyone's close attention."
- Ann Arbor News

"an enthralling two-record album ...a monumental work ...the accent is on rhythm -and it never lets up."
-Lee Hilderbrand, Pulse Magazine

"One of the 100 most important records of the century."
-Telerama (France), 1999


"One of the 60 jazz records of the 20th Century for people who think they hate jazz...  These albums changed me..."
- Actual (France)

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