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It is
amazing how many one man projects arrive on our redaction,
if course the current technology and the distribution
network of the internet can explain this partially. Very
often they are guitar players, playing at least a dozen
other instruments and only appealing here and there for
some guest musicians. And not seldom those guys can be
found in the world of fusion, this seems to be the case of
Travis Wittmeyer too. This multi-instrumentalist of
California has studied at several music colleges and is
now teaching, playing concerts and doing clinics. You get
the feeling immediately, that this album will be a teaser
for beginning guitar players. And although you can find a
lot of interesting hooks, that seems to be the fact here
too. The music shows a lot of variation with a mix of
fusion, jazz and even a bit country.
The
musical talent of Travis is obvious and without any doubt
and the drum playing of Mike Dailak is very enjoyable,
Travis was responsible for all songwriting, production and
mix. But this kind of music has the disadvantage, that it
is very difficult to keep the listener fascinated. The
first part consists of excerpts of fusion and jazz rock.
The second part shows a lot more variety, 'Journey
Between' for instance is a very melodic track with dreamy
guitar solos and Little Bug contains some steady 'heavy
rock'. The most interesting track is 'Tri Manta Si',
inspired mainly by jazz and classical music, with acoustic
pieces (à la Django Reinhardt) alternated by electric
fragments. 'Novel Sting' sounds a bit bluesy after a short
country intro, while
Cronosaurusraffegus
(what a title) starts in Satriani style and then continues
with some complex fusion.
You surely can find
nice moments on this album, but nevertheless the feeling
prevails that especially 'would be' guitar players will
like this stuff. Maybe Travis should look for some
additional musicians (like keyboards) to attract a bigger
audience, the question is naturally 'Is he really want to
take that direction?', the future will tell us. |
