Ozella Music
Dagobert Böhm : Circle Around (D,1999)**
Dagobert Böhm has worked often together with other musicians, playing in a contributive style for a structural balance. There he created acoustic fusions, that would fit well with the ECM label's taste.
I chose to check and review the album "Circle around" first, for it emphasise more on the guitar.
I especially liked the first track "Open air", as it has the most musically independent fingerpicking guitar style. Other tracks are more "podium" fusion guitar with a flair of delicacy and with a kind of an early spiritual interest like idealism connected with a mood of kindness, or a kind of inner control with a soft touch, or something like that. This intention makes the playing and ideas close to a certain minimalism, with an easiness close to and comfortable with what is an easily recognisable sound. Like a softly sparkling fountain, with some reflecting leaves, and with each leaf being another melody. Each sparkle shown is like another clarity unfolding. The fingerpicking itself works as a fusing rhythm. The same minimalism could cause melancholy, but here, it's like wearing a white shirt, which is simple and clean in expression, and purity for which it stands for, is nothing more than in the sense of "clean". This clarity reflects not necessarily pure creativity, but it is at least open towards a certain "purity" as result of the final effect and intention.
This is not a New Age Fusion guitar style, but for me it works a bit like that, in a similar way. It is as if a certain recognisable content is rearranged with a certain "spiritual" technique of control. I personally prefer more immediately directed creativity in guitar music. But for those who like to see a good dose of balance, and comfort could easily find their taste satisfied here.
Ozella MusicDagobert Böhm, Markus Reuter & Zoltan Lantos : String Unit (D,2000) **°°/***° (fusion)
Actually, I listened to "String Unit" at first.
Here, I liked immediately very much the warm, slightly spacey Indian Fusion styled "Indiaespara". The gypsy violin improvisation produced in the background by Zoltan Lantos, created as a part of the spacey fusion effect, with the bass 12 string touch guitar from Markus Reuter and the guitar from Dagobert Böhm this balance works just perfectly.
The combination of sounds, produced with lots of echo creating a full special vista works really very well for the (interactive) balance between the trio. And the fusing ideas deriving from world music, and beyond, with minimal trance effect works fine too. But it's especially the earlier mentioned balance which is the strongest point for this album / group. The group works and thinks very well as a whole. It gives the CD a consistent listen, within a relaxed fusion mode.
