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Jimmy Ryan — The Healing Guitar
(Ryanetics no#, 2022, CD)

by Peter Thelen, Published 2022-11-02

The Healing Guitar Cover art

It’s been a year or more since we reviewed Jimmy Ryan’s previous release Astral Café, a powerful set of thirteen emotion-filled guitar instrumentals (and a few vocal tunes thrown in for good measure) that took the listener on a journey through a riff-laden classic rock, blues, and fusion worlds — an impressive and expressive performance of composition and playing skill, with Ryan playing all of the instruments save the drums, by his producer Dan Van Schindel. Van Schindel is back again on the drums for Ryan’s latest, The Healing Guitar, this time produced by Tom Salvatori, the title possibly referring to some recent health issues. That said, this latest set is purely instrumental and far more reflective and laid back than his previous, still very rich melodically with many layers of inventive arrangements. The album begins with “Walden,” a gentle composition that moves out slowly with a blistering solo cutting in around the three minute mark. “Twilight” follows with a similar slow pace and snother powerful melody that might get lodged in the listener’s psyche. Two more numbers, “Alphaville” and “Equinox,” follow, taking a similar path, the former making use of hand percussion as support, the latter rising up like a dreamy take on the morning sunrise, slowly building as it proceeds. So far, the pieces have all been stand-alone songs, but those same four pieces now become the first four movements in the twenty-eight minute “Healing Guitar in Nature Suite,” which features a number of natural found sounds like chirping birds, insects, surf, seagulls, children playing (all at various times, mind you, woven into the background), plus a fifth piece “Continuum” that wasn’t previewed as a stand-alone piece. The five-piece “Suite,” due to the liberal use of field recordings, has a very New Age feel, which I think was the overall goal with this album.

Filed under: New releases, 2022 releases

Related artist(s): Jimmy Ryan

More info
http://salvatoriproductions.com/jimmy-ryan

 

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