Winds of Home By Tri Nguyen

Winds of Home

By

Tri Nguyen

Written by

Steve Sheppard

Tri Nguyen must be one of the fastest growing world music acts around these days, he is literally everywhere and that cannot be a bad thing, as his music is simply delightful to listen to. On this memorable album he gives us a little slice of tradition and childhood, with some very inventive and exciting rhythmic changes and some explorative arrangements.

We can start with a fine example of that through the opening piece entitled “Paddy, Paddy”. This is a perfect place to start, a wonderfully rhythmic version of an old North Vietnamese folk song, the performances here are equally inventive and extremely addictive to listen to, I have spun it six times now and still I find more fascinating nuances contained within each time I do so.

Nguyen is a master of the instrument known as Dan-Tranh (A plucked Zither) and on this next slow paced but quite beautiful opus he has brought his skills to the front of the stage, the performance here is quite moving, mixed with the added instrumentation of violin (Son Mach) he creates a truly colourful landscape of music on “Golden Steps”, a Southern Vietnamese children’s lullaby.

“Piece of Cake” is an exciting musical interpretation of a tale about a young boy and a stolen cake, the violin and percussion manifests a disco style, and thus the musical narrative gained has created a wonderful juxtaposition between the past and present, and all done with such charm and vibrancy.

The clever performances within this album are a pleasure to listen to; the crafted presentation of this next offering is sublime in its musical textures, and entitled “From Afar I See Thee”. We can feel a level of emotion pour from this piece, and the almost symbiotic performance from Nguyen (Dan-Tranh) and Mach (Violin) are utterly heart felt, and steeped in the energies of a love yet to become.

Now for something completely different, we arrive at a piece called “Tweet & Love”. Note the slow but ever increasing tempo to the inevitable crescendo, there is so much in this piece to take note of, the rhythm at times is distinctly Tango, and other fusions may also be apparent to the listener that go into making this track the most fascinating off the album.

One of my personal favourites would be this next offering from the artist and it is entitled “Ten Reasons to Love”, it also happens to be the shortest track off the release, however there is something truly addictive about this offering, it seems to spin and swirl around you, and like life always in a circle, a fine performance indeed.

This is the one; I arrived at the track “Sweet Lies” and found heaven in a musical narrative bathed in the longest offering off the album at well over six minutes long. This is a true band performance and almost blues-like in its energies, so let’s mention the team. On Double Bass we have Huan Do, Violin Son Mach, and Percussion Dru Nam; on guitar we have Tri Nguyen. Tri Nguyen excels on this fabulous piece, while Huan Do on double bass pulls off what I can only describe as a true soul touching performance. I can see this is one track I am going to be playing for years to come, simply brilliant!

Our penultimate offering is the sparkling composition entitled “Flowers”, once more we see a delightful global fusion of a musical tapestry, a multi-genre crossing endeavour as Salsa meets world music, bows to jazz, and jumps into a blissfully happy colourful Latin/Vietnamese lake of truly masterful music, and yes, you have guessed it, another absolute favourite of mine.

So we end this wondrous musical experience by hopping on the back of the “Ebony Horse”. Tri Nguyen finishes with a flourish here on this offering, a fluent and fast paced song that illustrates new beginnings and exciting opportunities that can be found together. There are a few memorable performances here; notable is the extremely powerful but crafted percussive presentation by Dru Nam that ends this quite breath taking journey for us.

Winds of Home by Tri Nguyen is an exciting musical sojourn that will bring thrills, emotion, passion and great colour to its listeners, it is without doubt one of the finest example of global fusion styled music I have heard for many years, and it’s infectious vibe and pristine performances will doubtlessly make this an absolute winner with the fans and listeners alike, this is certainly one I am more than happy to recommend.