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| :: IO Pages (Holland) :: |
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"…the drums, always the drums" (from: Slagerij Van Kampens: 'Spit In The Storm') Drummer René Engel has something with guitar players. He has had a lot of bad luck when, on his debut album 'Despite Opposition', Scott Henderson's record company didn't allow him to collaborate at the very last moment. At the same time, the chance doing a support act for the same guitarist went up in smoke. Musically it's safe to say René doesn't need these international topmusician's at all, as 'Despite Opposition as well as 'Spheres Of Samarkand' are on such a high level, they can easily compete with world class acts such as Scott Henderson or Allan Holdsworth. For Spheres, where Nippy Noya is performing a guestrole again, René has been able to get Richard Hallebeek to perform all the guitar parts on the album. Hallebeek (who studied with ….Henderson) recorded an album for Mark Varney's Legato label in '95 with a.o. Frank Gambale, Carl Verheyen and (sigh) Henderson. His style fits perfectly with the music René composes and thanks to his playing the record is able to achieve such a high level, this also holds true for the CD presentation party that was held in Sub Rosa, Almelo where there was a disgraceful little audience.
The album has a lot of different infuences, due to the different sources of inspiration René uses for his music. 'Cullera' and 'Curacao On My Mind' are perfect examples of optimistic sounding jazz rock, without degrading to weak sounding fusion, the titel tune has neatly interwoven oriëntal atmospheres, 'So Deep' is a ballad with a shivering climax and there are different showcases of complex jazzrock. In comparison to his debut album, the drumsolo's are reduced to two compositions whereby the emphasis is more on the sound of the whole group. Due to his contribution to 'Jazzsick', a project from '95, with Jazz great such as Mike Stern and Danny Gottlieb, René has already deserved his international status as one of the greatest drummers thanks to his albums.
René Yedema |
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