Parallel Crossings

Kevin Kastning (Artist), Sandor Szabo (Artist) | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (April 29, 2008)
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Greydisc Records
• ASIN: B0017VVTVK
• In-Print Editions: MP3 Download
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #988,810 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Editorial Reviews

Review

Here are quotes from just a few of the many worldwide magazine reviews of the duo's 2007 album "Resonance." "The abstract expressionist painting on the cover of "Resonance" is fitting. This collection of haunting baritone guitar duets is a thrilling reminder that music is art as well as entertainment. Kastning, a Massachusetts native, is a pioneer in modern acoustic guitar composition, a world seldom visited by mainstream listeners. In his latest offering Kastning teams up with Hungarian virtuoso Sándor Szabó to produce thirteen puzzling pieces that may be best described as acoustic soundscapes. But the staccato back-and-forth of "Resonance" can be disturbingly peaceful and inspiring for those with enough time to develop an intimate relationship with it. Listen to this disc alone while you're writing, painting, cooking, or whatever it is you consider your art, and see where it takes you."
- Yankee Magazine (USA) --Yankee Magazine (USA)

Review

"This disc will most definitely not be for everyone, but those for whom it has been specifically crafted will be delighted, a set of spacious, abstract, and airy penseés on the intelligently pastelline albeit darkly hued virtues of two acoustic guitars joined in structured improv dependent only upon the moody cast of the entire selection's grey shadowy flavors. Many years ago, two giants, John Abercrombie and Ralph Towner, came together to create ECM's killer Sargasso Sea, and it set the standard, a highwater mark rarely attempted let alone pulled off. A lustrum beyond, they issued the return meeting, Five Years Later, to general ecstasy. Resonance is like the third meeting, this time with Towner & Abercrombie being joined by Bill Connors in his ECM heyday. That is to say: Szabo and Kastning are a good deal darker than Ralph and John had been, following Connors' Mist and Melting peregrinations. Now, it should be known that Abercrombie & Towner cannot be surpassed, that's just the set rule, but this duo has made the finest task of it to date. Very satisfying, it persistently etches itself in mercurialities, evanescence, and threnody, boasting a use of baritone guitars exclusively, hand-crafted instruments yielding rich tones and meaningful shades. This CD is an hour-long spree of slowly shifting Dantean environments and atonal wanderings in fields close by yet far from the safe pastures of urbanity. Wild is the heather here, foggy the banks, and mysteriously does the day pass in reveries and echoing tastes. Like many such releases, it works beautifully as background chiaroscuro or closely followed fare. Either mode repays the attentions given, but it is not and I can't stress this firmly enough of an ilk with the New Age duets the disc might initially be mistaken for (the cover is very pleasant two-toned abstract canvas). Such things are 99% milk-blooded tomfoolery, while Resonance breathes, whispers, cajoles, sulks, and hypnotizes in an extremely literate fashion. Therefore, do not send to know for whom the muttering minor chords ring, they beckon thee."
- Acoustic Music Exchange Magazine (USA) --Acoustic Music Exchange Magazine (USA)

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