new guitarists : review page Steffen Basho-Junghans

Blue Moment Arts Steffen Basho-Junghans : In search of the Eagle's Voice(D,1995)***°°

Where Fahey, Peter Walker, Sandy Bull, Basho and some others have explored before him the raga guitar style, Steffen learned it all and transformed it to his personal style. This release is one of the best starters if you like the achievements of the first masters. There's another master playing here with an incredible talent. Compared to his later album "Song of the earth" this album is most near to the roots where the raga guitar styles started.

Most releases with raga guitar have mostly only one or two tracks in this style. Here we have an amount of variations of possibilities in comparable tunes, and in different moods.

The titles of the record refer to Robbie Basho. The painting remind me of the East and possibly also refers to Basho, the Haiku poet. The lines drawn in the air might be an overview towards various tone levels/perspectives, as if seen from an eagle's flight.

Audio : "Sweet Silence", "Nightbirds Song"

Strange Attractors Steffen Basho-Junghans : River and Bridges (D,2003)****°

After having had a more experimenting approach on his guitar on a number of his releases, having perfected the raga guitar style, this release is again more independent in style. It is inspired, spontaneous and sincere, mature, harmonuous and well crafted.

"The River Suite" is a beautiful 22 minutes long finger picking song. I can't recall many more long guitar tracks with this quality, craftsmanship and inspiration. It was inspired by Virgil Thompson's "Louisiana Story". Also "Hear the winds coming" is somewhat similar in style, slightly different in mood. "The Takoma Bridge incident" pays tribute to John Fahey's steel string guitar label Takoma that supported steel string guitarists (like also Robbie Basho, Leo Kottke, Peter Lang). It's a 12 string guitar finger picking track with changing moods and references. "Rainbow Dancing" with 12 string guitar has a more happy mood, while "Autumn II" has the mood deriving from meditation into an awakening inspired reflective moment, just as if you could find "spring in the freshness of water in autumn". The short "Epilogue" with 6 string guitar is a well thought out track with nice balanced contrasts in tones and ideas. On "Rivers and Bridges" various rivers have been travelled, rarely seen bridges have been crossed with such ease and fluidity !...

More audio : http://www.musicoutfitter.com/store/item/789856301027/riversandbridges.html

Label entry at http://www.sublingual.com/basho.html

Strange Attractors Steffen Basho-Junghans : Late Summer Morning (D,2006)*****

On this new album Steffen combines certain previously tried ideas with more intuitive freedom, resuming the earliest periods from impressionist to raga excursions on the first track.

The title of the album suggests the reference to the periodically associated Indian raga-structure, or at least “Late Summer Morning” works in that way. At the same time and similarely Steffen also is a painter. The landscape in watercolours on the cover (which continues on the back cover), can be compared to the way guitar excursion also “paints” itself, while the mood fits with the morning, and the energy becomes brighter, rising along as the rising sun.

Another idea derived from periods with new-minimalism, with moments of silence that say as much, like the melodic intertwining on “In a Secret Garden” or with new resonating harmonies on “Woodland Orchestra”, combined with more expressive paint, a track which evolves to a very complex height that still sounds natural in being different and unique.

The next tracks, like “Sky Dreamer’s World” and “Azure n°3”, which refers to the “Waters in Azure” album, use complex pickings and harmonies. On “Azure” it is as if Steffen has a third hand picking along.

Once more this album reveals for the guitar lover areas of finger picking guitar I have the impression..where no one has gone before, but because of the beauty and details of the landscape the global harmony still makes it never the less recognisable. Another brilliant masterpiece.

Label info on release : http://strange-attractors.com/catalog/saah045.html

Interview : http://www.perhapstransparent.com/steffenbasho-junghans.html

Strange Attractors Steffen Basho-Junghans : Waters in Azure (D,2002)***°°

This release might be a challenge for the listeners but the experience will still be rewarding. There is not shown the easiest and most common approach to create new guitar excursions. This sounds more experimental or better : more adventurous and exploring. The result remains like soundscapes, but with a different essence than "water" how we usually associate something fluent and blue. For instance, there are also some high pitches I can't associate with something like the element of water. So what is shown is more something like an increased perstpective, beyond the known colours and elements as well. Insects for instance also hear higher sounds. This music is like flying into such higher sounds, and flowing in it as well, into the higher "blue notes" of it or something. This is a deeper experience, just like a blue deep lake can be associated to contain something as if from a deeper unconscious level.

Even the tracks played with one finger are strangely enough "nice" to listen to.

Only the last extremely minimalistic track I don't like so much, because it sounds a bit as if the record is skipping.

The music of this album, I was told, was inspired by the limitations of some hand surgery, which made Steffen look for new possibilities to play the guitar.

Audio : "part 1", "Inside the Rain" (or here or here).

Info : http://www.strange-attractors.com/catalog/SAAH005.html

Review http://www.epitonic.com/artists/steffenbashojunghans.html

Sillyboy Steffen Basho-Junghans : Unknown Music 1 : Alien Letter (D,2005)***°'

Here Steffen doesn’t make it easy for the listener. Listeners in general are so much exposed to repetition of recognisable ideas, this might come over to some as "too strange"; some may even find it “chaotic” and who knows “nonsense”, which is of course not true at all. How many persons can still listen, and still have true open ears for sound evolutions and structures, and can recognise something which is structured within the unusual ?

The strangest thing is that for instance the first two compositions are normal fingerpicking, slightly jazzy even, but the harmonies and use of strings aren’t. These two deliberate melodies with unusual chords are called “Kottke on Mars”, and is an idea of genius of bringing a normal melody into an unusual new context. Then Steffen begins to improvise and play with strange combinations of strings, including the loose ends of strings.

Also within the improvisation there’s a self-organising vision. It’s not just doodling or free or just “experimental” like the term experimental nowadays is also used e.g. by people without a vision which is a collection of noise instead of organising sounds. This is an exploration with a vision that is created from knowledge, skills and with a creativity of an undeliberate “inventor” in the true sense, which is formed by listening carefully and at the same time creating a vision of how one can progress this further.

It is more or less exploring like a child all new combinations and hidden combinations in the guitar, where the adult takes the lead over them and gives them a new future. The world in between has its vast material of recognisable patterns. After both visions the adult brings a couple of recognisable melodies into them, fluently attached to the earlier newness. Then they walk along together into a new combination.

Along the path of the improvisations it is not just a moment which can’t be repeated because it has too many ideas along the road not to. The unique thing about this exploration is a good portion of melodic and structural organisation along with the new combination of sound inventions.

The first 7 tracks listen like one exploration in several parts, as one composition and with the kind of variation I just mentioned. The eighth track is a second exploration, with a consciously chosen starting point, and with a slightly meditative effect, even if one could say this is done in an avant-garde way. I prefer to say it is just with a different or even in an alien world way. The ninth track show a variation on this, with one step further to alienation, becoming even more otherworldly, more energetic, almost like a machine which comes to life. The tenth track is a different version from the same starting point. The last track is a more calmed down most meditative improvisation with similar side-effects in playing. While this improvisation falls back on a rhythm of a chord, this concludes this way with a contemplating peace.

Audio : "IV","VIII" ; 3 track samples : http://www.secondlayer.co.uk/sounds/sound1100.htm

Other reviews : http://www.allaboutjazz.com/php/article.php?id=17604

& http://www.secondlayer.co.uk/index/p1100.htm

& http://www.tonevendor.com/item/18724

Preservation Steffen Basho-Junghans : Unknown Music II -Transwarp Meditation- (D,rec.2000,pub.2005)*****

When I started to write down what I thought on hearing how Steffen’s excursions were played, who says that I interpret this all well enough, for he plays with so many possibilities of how to play the guitar that merely all of his approach is something new, in the context of creating with it new structures and improvisations. The hanging out string ends were used before by some guitarists, but I think never like Steffen Basho-Junghans who makes the sounds vary with interaction from one sonic edge to the next. Some high pitched notes seem to jump out like pulsations out of a sonic wave, almost like electronic pulses, hardly an effect from a guitar, like some alien form of sound-sensitive guitar playing. It’s one of those moments when a completely new instrument is born with new possibilities. The chords and individual notes are able to change pitch, or gives warped effects. This is guitar music like I have never heard before, but still with a complexity and logic and balancing out harmonic interaction so that it makes very much sense (most of this was about the part “I”). Then he seems to improvise like on a jazz guitar but again with strange variations and chords. He leaves room for active space even when there’s no resonation left these spaces work. Then the composition seems to be broken up from inside showing a different as usual compositional surface. I wish I could see all this happen. I will need many more listens to reveal it all. The result is worth analysing and learning from it for many years to come. Highly unusual, as a new variation of logic.

Audio : http://www.secondlayer.co.uk/sounds/sound1319.htm

Homepage : http://www.bluemomentarts.de

Label info : http://www.preservation.com.au/steffenbashojunhans.html

Review with audio : http://www.boomkat.com/item.cfm?id=20225

Other review : http://www.dustedmagazine.com/reviews/2378

Interview : http://www.digitalisindustries.com/foxyd/features.php?which=130

More S.B.J. reviews and descriptions on http://psychefolk.com/basho.html

Architects of Harmonic Rooms Steffen Basho-Junghans : IS -LP- (D,rec.2000-2006,pub.2009)*****

I have listened a couple of times to this new release of Steffen Basho-Junghans. It has been a while since I heard a new release from him. But here he proves how much he is a visionary in his guitar work, has a complexity in his playing which is more like painting with different forms and formats and combining this in a composition. This is also with much a more developed vision and technical range than almost any guitarist, especially from the past. Never the less lots of the fundaments are recognisable, just are explored as expanded worlds.

The first track is based upon a vibration provoked on the strings by sliding very fast up and down, adding accents and melody as if showing the development of a painting rather than a musical form, never the less resulting in a balanced musical composition as a first movement, a perfect intro. The second track which uses a more earthly improvisation on what sounds more bluesy to my ears uses the subtle vibrations on top. This evolves to a hypnotic sound field in between, a minimal finger rhythm played with slowly changing pitches and colours, hypnotic and vivid mechanical before returning to the bluesier excursion, still changing colours and pitches strangely by sliding the range of its picking sounds. The third track gives a different variation of the vibrational field, played by a rather fast rhythmical brushing this time, with the effect of a minimal repeated mechanical rhythm with a certain droning effect, with additional subtle changes, before transforming once more into melodic and bluesier improvisation. The fourth track uses a minimal pattern of plucked strings with pickings improvised around that. Also this sounds very visionary like a painting. The last two tracks start from a prepared guitar colourful range of a basic chord. The first track sounds almost like two guitars arranged over each other. Around these stranger pickings a warm and colourful range of melodic arrangements are formed over it. The last track with a very interesting enriched variation of a sort of prepared guitar starting point, adds more recognisable melodic improvisation modes to it, logical evolutions with strong accents and masterly ranges of expressions.

Steffen redefines the possibilities of expressions on the acoustic guitar: Like Fahey enriched certain traditional fields and opened them up technically with improvisation and melodical combinations, Steffen shows how these traditions can be used to paint with. He turns the traditions as well as the guitar into an instrument to paint with.

Audio : http://diogenes.greedbag.com/buy/is-9/

Label info : http://www.harmonicrooms.co.uk/Steffen%20Basho-Junghans.htm

& http://www.harmonicrooms.co.uk/shop.html

Homepages : http://www.bluemomentarts.de/ & http://www.myspace.com/steffenbashojunghans