VINZ VONLANTHEN - No Man's Land
Leo RecordsCD LR 873
Vinz Vonlanthen : Solo guitar, voice
Recorded 6th, 7th September 2018 at HEMU, Lausanne
It is good to hear Vonlanthan’s new, solo guitar album on Leo again, his first being with Leo back in 2005. This one delivers multiple guitars and a variety of vocal sound effects without words – could be wailing, whimpering or whining – over backgrounds of aberrant harmonic partials. His differing strata of bass and higher frequency articulations, expressed concurrently, create the sense of changing structures to each piece on which he can hang a medley of symbolic actions, images or sounds from which his discourse may develop.
The ambience overall is portentous, menacing even. There is a threat, which as yet is unidentified; the journey is through uncharted territory – and there are inklings in the track titles, whether it’s being lost in the Amazing Maze of track 9, being On the Run, in track 5, or crossing the No Man’s Land of track 10.
There is an air of hopelessness too; often accompanying the feelings we experience in those lost situations, this nimbus is of the darker variety, not at all akin to that lent a golden credence in classical mythology.
It’s a splendid aspiration, his untiring efforts to render each piece individually really reward him and us and his imaginative use of his improvisation techniques creates the precise conditions that determine the success of this his creation.
Reviewed by Ken Cheetham
Leo RecordsCD LR 873
Vinz Vonlanthen : Solo guitar, voice
Recorded 6th, 7th September 2018 at HEMU, Lausanne
It is good to hear Vonlanthan’s new, solo guitar album on Leo again, his first being with Leo back in 2005. This one delivers multiple guitars and a variety of vocal sound effects without words – could be wailing, whimpering or whining – over backgrounds of aberrant harmonic partials. His differing strata of bass and higher frequency articulations, expressed concurrently, create the sense of changing structures to each piece on which he can hang a medley of symbolic actions, images or sounds from which his discourse may develop.
The ambience overall is portentous, menacing even. There is a threat, which as yet is unidentified; the journey is through uncharted territory – and there are inklings in the track titles, whether it’s being lost in the Amazing Maze of track 9, being On the Run, in track 5, or crossing the No Man’s Land of track 10.
There is an air of hopelessness too; often accompanying the feelings we experience in those lost situations, this nimbus is of the darker variety, not at all akin to that lent a golden credence in classical mythology.
It’s a splendid aspiration, his untiring efforts to render each piece individually really reward him and us and his imaginative use of his improvisation techniques creates the precise conditions that determine the success of this his creation.
Reviewed by Ken Cheetham
