Reviewed by James Attlee

As the title suggests, a deliciously cool late-night instrumental guitar album. Werner is something of a guitar maestro, moving easily between Benson-Butler territory and Flamenco and classical-inspired pieces, all embued with a European sensibility that helps it (almost completely) avoid blandness. A reference point for guitar-o-philes might be the 'acoustic' extrapolation-period John McLaughlin, but Werner has a mellowness all his own, and rarely indulges in licks of the finger blurring variety. His bass-player, one Wolfgang Schmid, is more likely to amaze with a sudden blaze of speed, Werner lays back on the groove and subverts things with a neat twist in the melody here and an unexpected chord there. In fact, "neat" and "unexpected" are two adjectives that describe this album as well as any. I'm glad the money's around to finance Werner's musical explorations. Worth buying a ticket to go along for the ride.

The opinions expressed in this article are not necessarily those held by Cross Rhythms. Any expressed views were accurate at the time of publishing but may or may not reflect the views of the individuals concerned at a later date.

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