Record review

What happens when you make a garden that combines native and exotic
plants? What happens when you cook up a dish with spices from around
the world, but tie it all together in an integrated synthesis of a
meal? What happens when you extract musical essences from diverse
earthly cultures and then colonize a new world?

Acoustic Stick.

Don't get me wrong. This isn't a "world music" album, with its
monotonous, throbbing beat and obligatory digeridoo. Neil and company
obviously *understand* the musics that influence them, and what you
get is that understanding transformed through the hearts, minds and
hands of some great musicians, with some unique elements you won't
hear anywhere else.

When you first throw on the disc, your initial reaction may be [it
does say 19 and 34 tone guitars, after all] "What's so un...Oooh!
Wow!" There's almost a steel-drum quality to the afro-cuban jazzy
first cut, and it's really catchy, with hints and glimpses of those
exotic plants in the garden. And there's some really smoking, more
"straight" jazz, and some blues with a great twist, and even something
that will please the Julian Bream fans out there.

Of course it doesn't stop there. As the tour continues, the landscape
changes, with Neil eventually leading you through the back gate to
explore the native flora of his wonderful world. Play this album for
a group of friends, and I'd be suprised if there weren't at least one
person in the room playing air guitar along with Neil by the second
bar of Birdwalk! I can't quite think of how to describe the other
pieces. They evoke impressions of Pharoah Sanders meets Shankar in a
middle eastern cafe, but that doesn't begin to describe it. You'll
just have to listen for yourself.

Of course, this being a tuning list, I have to have the obligatory
tuning related content. :-) Well, as far as the tunings themselves,
they are as integral to the music as the timbres of the instruments
themselves. There are no academic experiments here, and the effect
is one of a melding of two worlds, more than the colonization of
one by the other.

If you want to, you might be able to nail your feet to the floor to
keep them from tapping, tie your hands to the chair to stave off any
form of rhythmic air-instrumentation, don your best Mr. Spock
immitation and sit and count the number of notes -- if you _really_
want to. Good luck trying. The music is just too good, and I can't
imagine anyone not finding something that captures their mind and
moves their soul on this album.

If you like music, you need this album. If you, or anyone you know,
is a guitar fanatic, you and they need this album. Actually, I think
everyone needs this album. If there's any fault at all to be found
with this album, it's that it's too short. I played it for a bunch of
folks last night, and after it ended, the universal response was "Is
that all? There's got to be more. Play it again." I, for one,
anxiously await the "more".


SMTPOriginator: tuning@eartha.mills.edu
From: Steven Rezsutek
Subject: Re: 19, 22, 29, 41, 53 : 12 and multiples
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