a r t i s t : Steffen Basho-Junghans
t i t l e : Late Summer Morning
d a t e : 2006
l a b e l : Strange Attractors Audio House SAAH045
g e n r e : Folk
r l s. d a t e : Sep/2006
t r a c k s : 06
b i t r a t e : VBRkbps
s i z e : 80,4 MB
_______________________________________________________________________
By every account, Steffen Basho-Junghans of Berlin, Germany is a true
master of the acoustic steel string guitar. As a player and composer,
scholar, teacher and trailblazer, no living player has a resume as vast
as he, nor has anyone so bravely and diligently challenged the tradition
by pushing it radically forward. Over the course of nearly 30 years,
Basho-Junghans has released 13 albums, founded festivals and taught
seminars focused on the acoustic steel string guitar, and claims the
most thorough archives of his mentor, the late Robbie Basho, on the
planet. Of his many albums, Basho-Junghans has composed music steeped
in the classic Takoma Records sound and revolving around Basho's American
Raga music, but he has also forged concepts based on unabashed
experimentation that has pushed the limits of the acoustic guitar into
very alien arenas. Through it all, Basho-Junghans has secured his own
distinct language, one that often speaks many dialects but is anchored
in a clear vision of his own design. Multiple streams of singing steel
have flowed across many landscapes, but with Late Summer Morning,
Basho-Junghans guides a confluence of them all into one glimmering and
gorgeous river of sound.
Much in the vein of his pastorale epic Rivers and Bridges, Steffen
Basho-Junghans harkens back to the heyday of American Primitive guitar,
as defined by John Fahey circa Fare Forward Voyagers and America, and
the American Raga structures of Robbie Basho. "Late Summer Morning",
the title track, is an unabashedly beautiful extended composition for
6-string guitar, stretching out languidly and effortlessly like a
morning raga saturated in crisp, warming hues. With the steel string
tradition as a steadfast reference point, Basho-Junghans utilizes
unorthodox pacing, picking and rhythms as Late Summer Morning progresses.
"Woodland Orchestra" discreetly harkens to themes of tone and minimalism
as found on 7 Books or any one of his experimental albums, while "Azure
No. 3" wraps glistening guitar lines into circular patterns to create
lovely trance-inducing color wheels. A key component to Late Summer
Morning, however, is Basho-Junghans' ability to strike out into the
unknown while keeping the sounds and tones grounded, something that
is evident as multiple sound forms hit the ear with calming bliss.
American folk and classical, East Indian Raga, Native American linearity,
the resonance of Middle Eastern folk and melodic Minimalism (i.e. Steve
Reich) meld together in a fashion that is tremendously cinematic and
allegorically vivid.
Steffen Basho-Junghans has tethered his elaborate language into a
pristine wedding of sound, resulting in what surely is the most
actualized summation of his musical quest to date. Late Summer
Morning is "minimalist trance-folk", a modern masterpiece of where
Guitar Soli has gone, and where it can go next.
_______________________________________________________________________
01-Late Summer Morning [22:28]
02-In A Secret Garden [05:18]
03-Woodland Orchestra [08:15]
04-Sky Dreamer's Gold [04:51]
05-Azure No 3 [05:59]
06-Northern Winds [06:13]
-------
53:04 min