ben kunin

ben kunin - acoustic adventures (the communion label, 2002)

It's clear with guitarists like Ben Kunin, that the first generation of interesting guitarists is not the last. Where groundbreaking guitarists needed to delve and dig a bit harder, starting from more rough material and sounds to break their way through, the new generation has the advantage of their historical predecessor's views, with guitar heroes that work now like fathers, for their new guitar sons. These sons start from a much more comfortable situation. It gives them time for a refinement in style. No steel-string melodic exploration, but a tasteful nylon string, for pastoral, meditative and naturally sounding creations, like the clearest blend of all, water. Ben Kunin learned sarod at the famous Ali Akbar Khan school. His guitar technique has this perfectly integrated style derived from Indian raga and western improvisations scales, presenting nature's landscapes, with more clear and structured forms than in just an impressionistic way. We hear a western kind of raga guitar expressed as like an impression from a train, watching wide colourful farmland and natural landscapes passing by. Endless, but never really abstract. Only "Julie" has something of a song, in fingerpicking style.

bucólico, ca.

- adj. Dicho de un género de poesía o de una composición poética, por lo común dialogada: Que trata de cosas concernientes a los pastores o a la vida campestre.

- adj. Que evoca de modo idealizado el campo o la vida en el campo.

Poco más se puede añadir, adornar si eso, la pastoral belleza de sus ragas improvisados, los contados esbozos de fingerpicking, la mirada hacia un lejano oeste, hacia un paisaje infinito. Ben capta la conversaciones y sonidos del aire y de los árboles, de los animallilos e incluso historias de fantasmas que ya no asustan.

La tres suites pastoriles son poesía en libertad:
pastoral suite i
pastoral suite ii
pastoral suite iii
julie