Customer Reviews

The Water Garden

5 star:		(12)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Each note seduces you into wanting to hear more. The music flows from one solo guitar piece to the next. The notes almost drip into your mind and ripple outward sending vibrations through your soul to calm you and yet they awaken something deeper in you at the same time.

Just as being near water calms us, Alex De Grassi seems to want to lull you into a meditative state. While this is named The Water Garden, it is much more and is far from a submissive offering. Each note is filled with a vibrancy that can only be compared to floating on cloud nine and will elevate your mood to a state of joy.

Prelude is an ecstatic piece reminiscent of water tumbling over rocks in a never-ending cycle as rain falls in the mountains, perhaps dripping from leaves and falling down to the earth. Each drop of water finds its way to another droplet and together they flow to the sea. It is absolutely breathtaking and then fades away.

The Zipper almost seems to be a piece about when the water reaches the ocean and as the sun is setting. You can almost imagine the water from a lagoon merging with the salt water. There is a sense of closure and a journey completed.

The Water Garden is a very mellow piece at first and produces a feeling of floating. As if you were floating in a pond gazing at an azure sky.

Lost in the woods must be a woods near the sea because it has a certain longing to it and almost seems to be waves lapping around the shore and at times crashing onto a beach. There is a deep ocean feel, with lighter notes, that make the sounds surface from time to time. I see whales playing in an ocean calling to one another as I watch them from a cliff.

Another Shore has an inevitability and certain sadness as if two lovers have given up trying to find one another and a certain regret is present in the piece.

Cumulus Rising is a far more airy and hopeful piece. An eagle seems to be spiriling upwards towards the sky. Heaven!

Ripple is a rapid selection which seems to move out in all directions at once. Someone almost seems to be swimming towards a waterfall in the shade of trees sending out ripples towards the shore. The most active piece and has a touch of sadness or deep contemplation.

Vanishing point is a very appropriate name as the notes appear and dissolve. As if rain was falling on soil and soaking in very quickly, yet more rain keeps falling. This is my favorite selection because it captures a variety of emotions.

Down below could very well be sunlight reaching as far down as it can go into the water where it reflects off fish playfully swimming below.

In Endless Rain, a torrential downpour of notes is almost overwhelming and you can literally hear drops of water splashing wherever they fall, then suddenly the rain does end.

Music can at times be a drink for your soul. I have never received such a beautiful gift and I thank the wonderful friend who introduced me to music I will enjoy when I need to relax deeply and completely.

~The Rebecca Review

Alex de Grassi is one of our national treasures, a fine composer and a wizard of improvisational guitar playing that crosses from jazz to 'new age' and back again with alacrity. He uses acoustic guitars with anywhere from 6 to 18 strings and countless open tunings, combined with a blazing technique that leaves you perpetually wondering who the other guitarist is. Trust me, there is no other guitarist.

At first listening I found this a less accessible album than some of de Grassi's other efforts. After several listenings, though, I realised that I was the problem, not the music. "The Water Garden" requires the listener to be present to the music. This is stuff for contemplative thinking and soft introspection. Something I should probably do more of. This is stuff that fills space with harmony and works with light, not background elevator music.

From the abstract minimalism of Prelude (3:31) and The Zipper (2:46) to the jazzy melodics of The Water Garden (4:03) and the percussive strikes of Lost In The Woods (4:05) this is an accumulation of pieces that draw the mind in and let it relax in a state of wonder and receptivity. The songlike Another Shore (4:29) is one of my favorites. Cumulus Rising (4:37) returns to the jazz idiom and continues de Grassi's investigation of subtle percussive effects.

Ripple (5:09) is another favorite, laying melody over a pulsing counterpoint that almost becomes a conversation. Vanishing Point (5:01) contrasts to alto voices that seek common ground, one contemplative, one seemingly lost in nervous energy. Down Below (4:04) returns to light jazz with some protechnical work on the bass strings. Endless Rain (4:09) ends the CD in the minimalist style it began in but now in an imitation of life. Great meditation music, and highly recommended.

Alex de Grassi is one of the best contemporary acoustic guitarists, and this is one of his best albums. Nominated for a grammy award, the compositions, guitar technique, and production quality on this album are all superb.

This album creates an aura of meditative peacefulness and ordered perfection. Every note is exactly in place, and yet at times they cascade over the ear in rich profusion like a waterfall of sound. But this is a peaceful waterfall, not the niagra of a rock band, but the gentle trickling one would hear in a garden.

Many of de Grassi's albums are good, and it is hard for me to describe exactly why this one stands out as one of his best. There is something about the clarity and subtlety of the compositions that catches one's heart. Many of the songs on this album are beautiful, yet none of them are cloying. Some of the pieces are quite abstract, yet they never lack a clear structure and a few subtle themes to tie the composition together.

I recommend this album whole heartedly to anyone who enjoys acoustic guitar music with a peaceful and meditative side to it. Don't mistake this for background music. The meditative aspect comes from the rewards one gets from listening very closely and careful to a superb craftsman and artist at the height of his powers.

One of the reasons I picked this disc up is because it is encoded in HDCD, myself being an audiophile who enjoys great music and great QUALITY in a recording. That said, I always had heard of Alex, but never bought anything from him. Upon my first play, I was hooked. Alex's technique and sound is incredible! His guitar playing is so liquid and seemingly effortless, it truly does evoke being transported to one of the most tranquil, scenic, aromatic places that exist on earth! His is one of the most unique styles of acoustic guitar playing I have ever heard, and that is a compliment. Bliss= me, this disc, and my Magneplanars!!!

I do think this album deserves 5 stars, although I personally don't like it. I don't like this style of ultra-precise, sharp, "plucky" guitar-playing in which every note sounds completely separate (I'm not a big fan of "New Acoustic" music, which seems to often sound this way); I like music that is fuller and "flows" together more. This album does make me think of water, but of thousands of individual drops, rather than waves or a waterfall. If you love very crisp-sounding solo classical/New Acoustic guitar music (with a hint of jazz) you will probably love this album. Just not my type of music.

I was taken by some of the comments in the review below. I think its evident that the listener below has never familiarized himself with Alex De Grassi's first few albums on Windham Hill.

Mr. Charles Smith, I encourage you to purchase Alex De Grassi's "Slow Circle" and "Southern Exposure". If your EXTREMELY lucky enough, you can get your hands on his first recording which is now out of circulation, and one of the greatest solo guitar classics, "Turning Back".

I think you will find the "inpiration" and "lose" structure your looking for from this period of De Grassi's career. And as a Huge fan of solo acoustic guitar music and practitioner of the art form myself, Im confident you'll be pleased!! Enjoy!

By the way, "The Water Garden" is fantastic in my opinion. And Alex De Grassi did an amazing job capturing the metaphor of water on this recording. It was a grammy nominee, and was a huge hit among many musicians and fans.

One of the reasons I picked this disc up is because it is encoded in HDCD, myself being an audiophile who enjoys great music and great QUALITY in a recording. That said, I always had heard of Alex, but never bought anything from him. Upon my first play, I was hooked. Alex's technique and sound is incredible! His guitar playing is so liquid and seemingly effortless, it truly does evoke being transported to one of the most tranquil, scenic, aromatic places that exist on earth! His is one of the most unique styles of acoustic guitar playing I have ever heard, and that is a compliment. Bliss= me, this disc, and my Magneplanars!!!

The fella before me that gave this album a 1 star, is probably not understanding what he is listening for or bought the CD for the wrong reasons.

Alex De Grassi is a self-made virtuostic acoustic guitar finger-stylist and when he is playing solo, he is at his best.

Take it from another practicing guitarist and owner of several Alex De Grassi CDs, this album is absolutely genius. It was written with a water theme in mind, and he captured it! If you like DeGrassi's earliest CDs like "turning back" and "clockwork", then you will like this. NO instumental accompaniment to cloud your vision of his tone and riffs.

I also highly reccomend the WindHam Hill Retropective CD. Its a "greatest hits" of sorts and captures some of the most inspiring early recordings.

either way you cant go wrong. buy it. buy 'em both.

I own about half of Alex de Grassi's albums; of the ones I know I think this is his best, but they all showcase a great talent for technique in the fingerpicking style. The sound De Grassi produces is amazingly clear and clean, and for all appearances effortless despite the complexity of his right hand technique. But... I don't feel I could ever give a De Grassi album a '5' rating, because to me he always sounds so mechanical. I can't think of any other guitarist so accomplished as he who exudes so little personality through his play. Yes, he does have a more or less instantly recognizable style, but it's not because of a particular kind of warmth/emotion; rather, it's on the basis of the lack of such. The present album purports to be "a collection of solo guitar pieces on the theme of water," but I feel/hear little of the wetness or chaos of flow that is the essence of water in De Grassi's play. It's just all too--organized. Try an experiment: play any of these pieces (or all of them) for a friend who has never heard of the album, and ask them what his play conjures up. Will they say 'water'? I doubt it. I like De Grassi in small doses; in that way his material comes off as more abstract (or perhaps classical), creating a kind of emotional counterpoint to other, more involving, material. **Addendum: In response to comments by one of the other reviewers: Yes, I actually do own and know all the early albums you mention--but my remarks still stand (in fact, they stand *because* I know those albums). I *admire* de Grassi's play, but find his approach too detached to be involving for very long, however spectacular his technique is.

Opinion seems to be divided on Alex de Grassi. This is my opinion. THE WATER GARDEN is one of his best recordings, and all lovers of acoustic guitar should find pleasure in owning it. Alex de Grassi has an exceptionally clear tone, and executes complex finger picking patterns in a variety of tunings.There is a lightness of touch about his playing,which has a distilled quality......it is glass rather than wood.....and there is a satisfying compositional structure about nearly all of his pieces. Forget all this talk about Monet , Debussy and Impressionism; that signifies no more than a certain abstract quality.Alex de Grassi creates feelings and moods without depending upon distinctive melodic statements. In his less successful compositions, one may begin to hope that a theme will emerge from the picking patterns, but nothing significant seems to arrive. However, he is very largely a rewarding listening experience, and the charge of lack of emotion is not fair. Yes, de Grassi is controlled, 'glassy', and abstract, but he will move you just like Bach or late Sibelius move the listener in a very different way from Tchaikovsky, or Mahler. In fact, in this age of emotional self-indulgence, (our soap opera culture) de Grassi's intellectual approach is to be welcomed. Listen to the title track, THE WATER GARDEN, or the equally beguiling LOST IN THE WOODS. Listen to THE ZIPPER displaying all the joyful exuberance of Schubert's trout. These are lovely works which leave one satisfied on an emotional, as well as intellectual level. And anyone who thinks de Grassi lacks emotion should hear EMPTY ROOM on the album SOUTHERN EXPOSURE. THE WATER GARDEN ranks with TURNING:TURNING BACK, SLOW CIRCLE, and SOUTHERN EXPOSURE as the best of Alex de Grassi. It is music that,once heard,lingers long and quietly in the memory; music that greets the listener with a gentle purity every time it is revisited. The lack of emotional self-indulgence is a positive quality which assures lasting appeal.