Whenever I’m stressed out from the day-to-day grind of life,
\nthere’s nothing more soothing to me than listening to some gentle,
\nacoustic music to calm my frazzled nerves. I’ve heard some
\nincredible music in this category over the last few months, all of
\nwhich has surely kept me from punching out a wall on occasion.
\n(From what I understand, the wall always wins. Ask Tom Petty.)<\/p>\n
The classical guitar duo of Fred Benedetti and George Svoboda
\nhave taken Spanish-influenced songs and raised them to a similar
\nart form, as evidenced by their recent release
\nFlamenco Dreams<\/i>. While I would question if all the music
\ncontained herein is true flamenco music, it does contain some
\namazing guitar work from these two.<\/p>\n
One thing about this disc that is a bit discouraging is that I
\ncan’t find any credit for the backing musicians. Unless Benedetti
\nand Svoboda overdubbed some of the rhythm tracks, it would have
\nbeen nice to give credit where credit is due. Still, the main focus
\nis on the guitar playing, and what a wonderful playing it is.<\/p>\n
Songs like “Mallorca Sunset” and “Moresca” almost make it feel
\nlike you’re looking out of a hotel window in Spain, watching the
\ndaily life below you unfold. The energy level in the playing of
\nBenedetti and Svoboda, on “Mallorca Sunset” going from sleepily
\ncalm to a high-energy dance-like rhythm, captures the mood of the
\nmoment and the music in a way that mere words can’t accurately
\ndescribe.<\/p>\n
However,
\nFlamenco Dreams<\/i> does feature more styles of music than just
\nLatin-flavored. “Romanza amor” is a gentle ballad that almost
\nsounds like something that could have come off a new age album in
\nAmerica. The light touch of the lead guitar on this one adds just
\nthe right voice to the track, speaking a language that a human
\nvoice could never have captured. Likewise, “Duende” almost sounds
\nlike something Segovia could have fiddled with, as you hear the
\nrolling guitar lines near the middle. (These aren’t quite as fluid
\nas I might have liked them to be, but seeing I can’t do any better,
\nI have no reason to grouse.)<\/p>\n
\nFlamenco Dreams<\/i> has only one major obstacle to overcome – a
\nslow start. The opening tracks “Isla Mar” and “Ritmos de Valarta”
\ndon’t capture the moment the way that one would have hoped, and
\nthey tend to impede my enjoyment of the disc overall. Fortunately,
\nBenedetti and Svoboda are able to step over this one small landmine
\nand almost make you forget about it.<\/p>\n
Anyone who likes good acoustic guitar work will undoubtedly find
\nmuch to like about
\nFlamenco Dreams<\/i>. Although I still prefer
\nReflections<\/i>, another album out of the Domo stable, this disc
\nwill do in a pinch when I need a musical stress reliever.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":24760,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[5962],"rating":[5617],"class_list":["post-35964","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-benedetti-svoboda","rating-rating-b-plus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/35964","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35964"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/35964\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24760"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35964"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35964"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=35964"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=35964"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}