ETTORE SALATI
This month's Artist in Spotlight is Ettore Salati from Italy. Ettore is a sought after session guitarist by many prog musicians not just in Italy but all around the world. He started playing piano at a very young age (mostly classical music) but when he became a teenager and discovered the world of Hendrix, Led Zeppelin, Genesis and 70's rock in general, he was immediately fascinated by guitar... more
KAT EPPLE (Emerald Web)
KAT EPPLE, flautist and composer, is our interview guest this month. She has won 8 Emmy awards, was nominated for a Grammy and she has released 18 albums internationally. Most of you know her as the other half of the legendary ambient/new age duo EMERALD WEB. She has a very large collection (over 200) of flutes that she gathered from all around the world during her travels. Kat composes original New Age/Jazz/World/orchestral music and has produced film scores and television soundtracks for National Geographic, Nova, CNN, Carl Sagan, Another World, The Travel Channel, Turner Broadcasting System, History Channel, HGN, The Guiding Light, PBS, and NASA among others, and was Music Director for the feature-length film, Captiva Island. She also owns a record company and works on both sides of the music industry as a musician and as a business woman... more
New Grass Revival / On The Boulevard
New Grass Revival are one of the pioneers of progressive bluegrass. Formed in 1971 by Sam Bush (mandolin/vocals), Curtis Burch (guitar), Ebo Walker (bass) and Courtney Johnson (banjo), they immediately got the attention from the industry both in a good and bad way. First of all, they were often told that their music was not bluegrass, and they knew it wasn’t “bluegrass” in its traditional sense, and it wasn’t what they were trying to achieve anyways. They were blending rock, soul and blues rhythms with the traditional bluegrass music. They were not wearing suites, but instead they had a more casual style along with long hair... more
WHERE'S THE NINE / Desensitized to Insanity
Cyclone Records / 2008
"Where's The Nine" is a 2 piece band out of Toronto, Canada: drummer Barry Connors and keyboardist Dean Watson. The album was released recently under the Cyclone Records label, however Where's The Nine's history goes far back, all the way back to 1979. Watson and Connors played in progressive rock band "Airkraft" for a while but then went their separate ways and basically lost contact until recently when they found eachother on the internet again (gotta love the internet!).
Obviously the duo did not lose the chemistry between them. Although they were miles apart, the distance did not stop them to record this album. The sound is a good mixture of rock, metal and jazz with countless odd time signatures and tempo changes. The opening track "A Rather Odd Tribute" is an example of that with shredding guitars, fusion like synths and up and down tempo. Throughout the album I heard a lot of Yes, Rush and Zappa influences. They named their second track "Mood Swings" but, I think all songs on the album are mood swings.
The last song titled "The Camera Ear" will give you an idea about how the recording and song writing process went. Since Watson and Connor live far from each other, Connor was filming his drumming sessions to send to Watson. But of course the files were too big to send via the e-mail, so they found a program that removed the video and create an mp3 file with the sound. Once received, Watson was working his magic on them, hence came "The Camera Ear".Since the members of the band are a drummer and a keyboardist, you will hear these two elements heavy in the mix, and there is nothing wrong with that however in my opinion their music is an empty canvas waiting for a bass player to pop in and add singing bass lines. This CD lacks that unfortunately. Other than that, it is a great album and I highly recommend it.
Hande BURDG
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