Talk about truth in advertising. Chicago’s usually high-flyin’ guitarist Jimmy Ryan dials back the intensity to spa-day levels for this 50-minute excursion into reflective and relaxing instrumental electric guitar music. Ryan, perhaps best known as one-half of the jazz-rock fusion duo Flyin’ Ryan Brothers, plays guitar and bass and is joined by Dan van Schindel on drums and percussion. Recorded in Chicago, the first four songs -- highlighted by the slow-burning “Alphaville,” which emerges as the most compelling song here -- represent a new side of Ryan and showcase his talent as a pure musician and not just a “guitar guy.”
Nowhere is that more evident than on the fifth and final track of this unexpected collection. “The Healing Guitar In Nature Suite” clocks in at almost 29 minutes and is comprised of the preceding four studio tracks -- “Walden,” “Twilight,” “Alphaville” and “Equinox” -- that merge into each other, along with an additional track titled “Continuum” that previously was thought lost. Producer Tom Salvatori “has creatively woven all five of these tracks into an ambient nature journey with wonderful background sound effects … starting with morning songbirds in a field, moving on to a visit to the ocean with sounds of surf, seagulls and children playing on the beach, and then ending in an evening field teeming with crickets, birds and even the hoot of a late-night barn owl,” according to information Ryan and Salvatori provided with the album’s release. The result is a moving piece that enhances the album’s overall effect.
After listening to this, I feel like I just received an aural massage.
Track Listing:
1. Walden
2. Twilight
3. Alphaville
4. Equinox
5. The Healing Guitar In Nature Suite
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