Customer Reviews

Homescape (Dig)

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The latest: Homescape
In Homescape Nguyen Le along with Dhafer Youssef and Paolo Fresu were able to create a celestial atmospheric music which is bouncing between electroambient and classical jazz walks.
The tracks are:


Stranieri:
This track with its opening interlude introduces you into the music cocktail that you are going to taste just from one cup. The rhythm is usually slow with an ascending tempo to follow the path of the beat.

Byzance:
This anthem is a funk jazz-taqsim with Dhafer's vocals jumping between the foreground and the background and creating in the same time a mystical scent.

Muqqam:
As the track title speaks, but this is more like a low-voltage nahwand! With echoing reverbs to give the listeners the feeling of depth and warmness and in the same time urging to increase the volume!

Mali Iwa:
Nguyen's genius touches floating, whirling, looping and fleeing into sacred chambers. The rhythm is again 1930's jazz without form but in the same time melodic and improvising.

Zafaran:
I guess the yellow impression of the CD cover comes from this yellowish-zafaran feeling. The mood is purely eastern joy mixed with electronic celebrations and can show the ululating instruments with the vocals changing roles so the listeners will find himself/ herself sinking into moody tone. Joy.

Domus De Janas:
Here he is Paolo Fresu giving birth for the angels of brass section hallucinations. I like it when he makes the blowing sounding as shamanic incantation!

Overview:
Nguyen Le, Paolo Fresu, and Dhafer Youssef have created a modern electronic, Arabic fantasy world with the release of Homescape. From the minute you pop on the album you are immersed in a trance inducing wall of sound that borrows from many influences. Nguyen Le plays acoustic, fretless, synthesizer, e-bow, and Vietnamese guitar as well as adding in computer programming and electronics. Paolo Fresu adds an airy trumpet and flugelhorn as well as electronics. Dhafer Youssef plays the oud and adds vocals and electronics. The middle eastern touches of Youssef and the airy flowing horn of Fresu are blended with absolute beauty to create a stellar backdrop for the electronic guitar play of Nguyen Le. This album has a wonderful flow from start to finish and it immediate sends your mind drifting off to faraway places. This is great background music and very conducive to daydreaming.

Song Highlights: (It is hard to pick out highlights here because every song is great and is essential to the overall mood of the album).

Zafaran: Trancelike melody with great electric guitar soloing by Nugyen Le with haunting spiritual background vocals.

Chelsea Bridge: What an odd version of this Billy Strayhorn classic. It opens with haunting trumpet by Fresu and he is backed up and complimented nicely by the guitar playing of Nguyen Le. You wouldn't think this track would fit it in this album, but somehow the brooding melody flows perfectly in this contemplative album.

Safina: The haunting wails both vocal and from the screaming guitar of Nguyen Le are drenched with pain and suffering. The feedback manipulation by Nguyen Le is fantastic.

This album gets my highest recommendation.

I happened across some of Nguyen Le's work years ago while scouring the bins for something different. I have, since then, followed and enjoyed his work although it has seen limited distribution in U.S. and it occasionally takes months to accept delivery. For me, it is worth the wait. This music is consistently creative and exhibits a quintessential mix of styles, cultures and compositional maturity. Very clean recording. A great addition to any international jazz collection.