| CD REVIEW Lion Music Summer Special: Guitar Idol 2008 - Coste Apetrea - Jennifer Batten - Eli |
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Lion Music Summer 2009 Re-issues Special According to our editor-in-chief (and who am I to question his word, even though I didn’t find evidence to this fact on the label’s website?), Finish specialist label Lion Music is throwing a couple of their 2008 releases back onto the market during Summer 2008. Go figure out the reasons why a record company does such a thing, only a year (and in some cases even less) after the albums’ original release! Maybe conditions weren’t at their peak at the time too give the albums the promotion they deserved, maybe the label has tapped into new agencies to promote the stuff? At any rate, the renewed promotion is a way to get in touch with these four great releases…and to me, music lover, that is still the main reason why I’m into the “business” of music journalism! I did the reviews underneath in alphabetical order, but started off with the Guitar Idol compilation, simply because that’s how I categorize my collection as well! Band : (Various Artists) The Guitar Idol 2008 event was conceived as an worldwide online guitar talent search with the thought of finding the next geberation of Guitar Heroes, and turned out to become the biggest guitar competition in history so far! The organisers, Alloutguitar.com, Licklibrary.com, and UK’s Guitar Buyer magazine had come together in late 2007, having decided the time was right for such an event, which was to make use of the Internet for the very first time. After a campaign through their respective means, contestants from all over the world would have their video or audio participation sent through on the newly started website guitar-idol.co.uk…and the result was simply staggering, as nearly a 1,000 entries were recorded between March 21st and June 14th, period during which nearly half a million people visited, voted, or entered the competition! Using a combination of public votes and a panel of music industry professionals, eventually 12 outstanding finalists were picked from the lot, finalists which were then invited invited to join in London for a finale show after a day’s worth of rehearsals, with a live band consisting of drummer Darren Ashford, rhythm guitarist Gianluca Corona, and bassist Dave Marks (all from the institute Of Contemporary Music Performance). For those finalists living in the UK (including Jas Morris, Tom Quayle, Ben Randall, one-handed phenomenon Marc Playle, 15 year-old North-Scotland wunderkind Lyle Watt) the trip was short enough, but others came from farther away (Muris Varajic came in from Bosnia, Daniele Gottardo from Italy, Gustavo di Padua, Gustavo Guerra, and Fernando Miyata from Brazil, Peter Petchalov from Russia, and Chris Feener from Canada). And so, on Saturday June 14th, the 12 finalists performed on the main stage at the London Guitar Show in front of a panel of music industry people (in case you’re interested, the judges were Phil Hilborne, Beth Johnson from Ernie Ball, Edward Box & Rory Sullivan from Alloutguitar.com, Andy James from Licklibrary.com and Alloutguitar.com, Martin Goulding from the Institute Of Contemporary Performance and Drew Cunningham of Rockschool) and a huge audience. Two hours after the beginning of the explosive show, Brazil’s Gustavo Guerra was picked as the winnerr of the competition, with Lyle Watt as runner-up! The CD is a celebration of the talents of àll finalists, including additional contributions from three artists who wére invited to join the finals, but simply couldn’t make the trip at the time, and three other artists which came so close to making the final dozen the label (akà Lars-Eric Mattsson) didn’t have the heart nót to include on this album! So, in addition to the people listed above, you also get the contributions from (sorry if I can’t always tell you where they’re from) Mattrrach, Masahiro Aoki (surely, this one comes from Japan?), Silvio Gasquez, Denis Vlachiotis (could be Greek), Andre Noronha, and Dimitar Nalbantov (another Russian, perhaps?). Oh, by the way, and Lyle Watt’s participation to the album comes in the form of his performance at the show!!! No idea where on the Internet you can listen to any full-length tracks off the album, but I’m sure all independent artists have a website (please make the trrouble of finding out for yourself), and also you’ll be able to listen to samples of all (or most) of the tracks at the usual on-line sales outlets (Amazon.com, CD-Baby…you name it!). At any rate, if you’re a Guitar Hero fan, a lover of the instrumental guitar music, Shred…guitar in general…there’s no reason for you nót to buy this album blindly, for what you’ll get (thanks to those 6 extras) is simply a wonderful 78:22 lasting album of Guitar Extravaganza! Meanwhile, some of the finalists have apparently gotten their chance in the music business. Didn’t I see a review for a Marc Playle album just recently? In spite of this being a compilation album, its exceptional nature (and the fact that we’ll possibly never hear about some of the artists on it again) compells me into rating it…a perfect rating, or what else had you expected from a Guitar Fan of the first hour? 98/100 Band : Coste Apetrea A lot’s to be said about this great guitarist whom, in spite of his Southern-European sounding name, hails from Sweden (current hometown Uppsala)! A short history? He started off his career with Swedish band Samla Mammas Manna in 1972, and continued with that band to record 3 albums. In 1976 Coste, along with one of the SMM members and a host of others, recorded a self-titled album for World music act Ramlösa Kvällar (on Silence Records). That same year Coste left SMM, travelled to Finland to play & record on Jim Pembroke’s album Corporal Cauliflowers, and had a nice jam session with guitarist Jukka Tolonen while in Helsinki. This led to a 7-year collaboration which produced several band albums, 2 acoustic albums, and a live one (recorded at Montreux Jazzfestival). In 1977 Coste also released his first solo album Nyspolat through MNW Records. In 1983 he started his own studio, getting into producing other people’s material (Pop & Rock) and making music for film, tv, and radio. In 1986 he started the Synchro Sound Music studio in collaboration with well-known Swedish songwriter/ producer Anders Henriksson, expanding the list of productions (again also tv, film, radio stuff) to the ludicrous! In 1990 SMM reunited in the original line-up, playing together until 1999 (during that period they recorded the album Kaka), when the drummer left after a lot of fuss. He was eventually replaced by the Japanese Tatsuya Yoshida (at the time active with Avant-Garde act Ruins, he moved to Sweden permanently in 2002). In 1990 Coste also formed the Heavy Blues Rock oriented The Power Trio with Max Ahman (guitar & bass) and Peter Eyre (drums), which is still active to this day. 1996 saw Coste and Ahman join in the recording of acoustic album Lonely Brains, 2002 (I know, aa giant leap in time, but fill it in with what you already read) SMM recorded a live recording in Uppsala, adding extra cuts from a live improvisation with SMM keyboardist Lars Holmer and the band Ruins for a special edition Japanese CD titled Dear Mama, and in the period of 2002-2005 SMM toured the USA, Japan, Russia, and Scandinavia! These days, Coste combines his activities with SMM and The Power Trio, with recording/ releasing his solo albums (Rites Of Passage was issued through Lion Music in 2006) and other stuff (he’s composed Orchestral music, works with other artists, got together with Tolonen in late 2005, resulting in a couple of shows together, etc)…in other words, this is one busy beaver! To date, he’s played on at least 20 albums, a selection of which you can find, with some details, at Coste’s own website coste.se (where you should also be able – I was too pressed for time to check oit out for myself – a “Jukebox” containing plentiful music by this truly fine artist). Coste’s previous solo album Rites Of Spring was, in spite of the fact that he himself regarded it as a return to his heavier roots, generally portrayed as a Jazz Rock album by the media…and these reactions made the man want to explore this heavier side of his soul to the bottom! When he touched on the subject with Lion Music owner Lars-Eric Mattsson (himself a lover of Classic Rock, Shred Metal, and ‘80s Metal in general) the latter became somewhat concerned as to just how heavy Coste was gonna take things, but in hindsight I would say that things came out pretty nicely indeed! You see, although there’s a foursome of songs (all put together as a block following above mentioned instrumental), the remaining 8 tracks are instrumentals in which a Jazzy undercurrent cannot be denied…certainly not in the calmer ones! In the heavier tracks or passages however (with the album title track as best example), the guitar parts (embellished with piano or other keyboards) get a Fusion and even a Shred capacity which cannot be denied either! As far as the singing is concerned, Coste has a surprisingly nice voice which attracts from the very first verse and is somehow remeniscent to the Heavy Blues Rock giants of old (at least in MY mind)! Get a whiff of what’s on this album either from the artist’s own website or at myspace.com/costeapetrea, where you’ll not only find a sample of the album, but also full-length versions of instrumental “Kolkata Traffic” and song “Pumping Hello”. Also posted is a track from an upcoming album which he recorded with female tabla player Surajana Ghosh. End of the line, this is a great album which would’ve gotten in my 2008 year-lists effortlessly had I come across it at the time of the original release! 98/100 Band : Jennifer Batten Yet another winner! This incredibly good female guitarist’s fame grew from mouth-to-mouth in the mid-‘80s, until the magazines started picking up on her incredible skills towards the end of same decade. She was then picked from a list of over 100 gifted guitarists to join Michael Jackson during the Bad Tour, and the next year and a half she would become renowned for the sometimes outrageous hair styles she would display on stage. After that first tour, she jumped into a studio to record her 1992 solo debut Above, Below, And Beyond with producer Michael Sembello, and shortly after that album’s release she was again invited to join Jackson on his European & Japan tour for the Dangerous album. On Jan. 31, 1993 she alsso joined Jackson to partake in the half time entertainment of the Superball, an event which was televised to 1,5 billion people all over the world (still a record holding figure). Batween 1994 and 1999 Batten joined David Rodgers and Domino as featured guitarist on the Eurobeatsongs “Sun City”, “Music For The People”, “Fly”, and “Woa Woa Woa” (her live performances with Eurobeat were however limited to playing at the Tokyo Dome with Rodgers and Queen Of Hearts). During 1997 she not only released her 2nd solo album Jennifer Batten’s Tribal Rage – Momentum album (as the title infers, it was heavily influenced by world music, seeing the use of such Rock “strange” instruments as Australian didgeridoo, Scottish bagpipes, and African percussion). Right after the completion of the recordings of that album in late 1996, she was again recruited by Jackson to be the guitarist on his 2-year tour for the double album HIStory. In the spring of 1998, Jennifer was asked by Jeff Beck to join his band, which saw them cooperate on Beck’s albums Who Else and You Had It Coming, as well as touring in support of ‘em. Outside the strict world of playing music, Batten worked with a designer to develop her own brand of guitar string dampers (called Batten String Damper) and has authored two music books. Batten’s third solo album Whatever was first released in Japan in September, before Lion Music picked it up for a worldwide release on April 28, 2008. On the 10 songs you’ll find on it, she again displays the fact that she is a wonderful guitarist, one whom’s not afraid to go acoustic (on the instrumental solo bit “Fearless”, for instance), or use additional electronics and programing to get her music made. Nevertheless, she also worked with a couple of guest musicians on some of the tracks (bassists Sandin Wilson and Andre Berry contributing to the tracks “Ricochet” and “Off The Deep End” respectively; cellist Skip Vorunske and violinist Nelly Kovalev to the instrumental “in the Aftermath”; Native American flutist Betsy Hamilton on “Run With It”; and eventually drummer Michael Batten on the album closing instrumental “Inner Journey”,whichheco-wrote, and also giving the track “Fearless” giving its percussive sound additions). She invited additional people to give vocal contributions, most of which doing spoken words (those tracks which have actual singing done on, don’t even have lyrics, not even the Native American flavoured “Run With It”)…making for a total of 7 vocal-enhanced tracks, and 3 instrumental ones, brought to you in a lapse of time lasting 49 delectable minutes. At myspace.com/jenniferbatten, you can listen to an album sample bit, and full-length versions of the album’s title track and “Off The Deep End” (plus her debut album’s “Ya Ain’t Nothin’ But A Fast Car”, and a medley of the previous album). Turn it around anyway you like, you won’t be able to escape the fact that, upon listening to this album, you have to agree that this is an album you nééd to have in your collection! If you’re a Guitar Hero fan, there’s just no way to get around THAT! 98/100 Band : Eli Eli now, is named after female Italian singer Eliza Pezzuto. She apparently new to impress Lion Music owner Lars-Eric Mattsson with her vocal capacities to the point of him composing a complete album’s worth of material in the Gothic Metal style! With himself handling all guitar, bass, and keyboards (necessary to generate the occasional weird sounds on the album), Eddie Sledgehammer as a drummer, and recruiting some classical instrumentalists (violinists, cellists, and woodwind players) to make up The Astral Orchestra, what you get on Darkness Will Fall are 9 Gothic Metal tracks varying in length between just over 4 minutes and going up to 6:50 (total album length almost 46 ½ minutes), inspired by the likes of Nightwish, Within Temptation, and Epica (at myspace.com/elizapezzuto, the singer also adds Mattsson as an influence), and also varying in intensities. Obviously, there’s the heavier electric guitar-driven parts, but there’s also calmer passages, and “My Emptiness” is even a song (implying there’s also a vocalist) for acoustic guitarist and cello! At the singer’s MySpace page, you’ll find mp3 files for the album opening track “To Slowly Fade Away” and “Back To Your Grace”…which may not seem very much, but will certainly enough to convince you of the angelic qualities of Miss (or is it Mrs.?) Pezzuto. If you’re a Goth Metal fan but need more persuation, check out amazon.com for samples of the other songs! Well, I’ve never really been a Goth fan, but I can sure appreciate the music and the singing stylings (Eliza is never off-key, which is something which happens but too often with some of the wannabe soprano singers without the proper training), and as in this case it is nicelly interwoven with that classical string-and-woodwing orchestra...well, this is a project whose next outing I’m really looking out for! Not to the point of putting Darkness Will Fall in my 2008 year-lists though! 90/100 Tony. |
