Travelogue By Jim Kimo West & David Vito Gregoli

 

Travelogue

By

Jim Kimo West & David Vito Gregoli

Written by

Steve Sheppard

 

When I first came across this album I was intrigued as in my younger days used to be a bit of a global traveller, so here I am once more, off on my travels, albeit vicariously thanks to an album called Travelogue, manifested into reality by two of the finest instrumentalists around in Jim Kimo West & David Vito Gregoli.

The album is an 11 track work of great colour and texture, and the first steps is a song called Friday Harbor which is packed with multi-instrumental magic from the guitar, to the banjo, to the sumptuous fretless bass. The song is quite clever in its build and progression, to both hold the relaxed vibe, but to build a temperate level of excitement, as one does when one starts out on a new journey.

The next offering starts quite attractively with a fluent and imploring guitar narrative on Islamorada Sunset, for some reason it reminds me of Fields of Gold by Sting, but without the lyrics, which in a way are easy to picture, especially if the said location is Florida, which has almost the same weather conditions as my home in Cyprus.

It is always a great pleasure to listen to the combination of Vito and Kimo, they always bring a veritable tapestry of tonal colour to all of their illustrious compositions, such can be said for this rare gem of a piece called Lake Crescent, a slow and gentle acoustic guitar narrative allows us to travel to an idyllic location with the artists, in fact the arrangement of the compositional structure could well gift any listener a boat ride memory through music.

One of the most attractive locations on the album was Yosemite, the dualistic convergence of guitars here was utterly sublime at creating a vast landscape of musical beauty, it was once on my bucket list of places to go to, but now that’s no longer possible, I will have to create my own visual through the medium of this most harmonic of creations.

Crystal River is one of the more meditative pieces from the release, a track that creates soothing tonal delights and gentle images of calmer days and times in blissful surroundings, whilst Big Sur manifests into reality a rugged location, a vibration of nature allowed to be free can be found in this sensitive arrangement.

The album holds much in its musical hands, a real treat can be found on the piece Highland Life, starting with some gorgeous harmonics, we seem to be weaving along a country lane almost hand in hand with the symbiotic guitar work, one that for me contained a little Celtic lilt to its overall narrative.

On Blueridge Moonlight one of the finest compositions from the release can be found, and with ease one of the most inventive and creative acoustic guitar compositions I have heard for quite some time, the use of the pause here was timed to perfection in a true colourful vista of a composition.

We find ourselves now in one of the most remote locations from the album as we listen to High Sierras. The multiplicity of instrumentation, and combinations of an assortment of guitars, both bass and acoustic can be found on a soft bed of sound that drifted with calm in the background of the offering, and it was without doubt one of the most fascinating and breath-taking tracks from the album.

The album is concluded with a track that was a massive hit for rock band Toto back in the 80’s called Africa, earlier on in the year this single by the pairing was released to the world and also included in it were performances from MB Gordy & Joss Jaffe, in what is a very chilled way with which to conclude the album.

There can be no doubt that that both artists are top of their respective leagues as instrumentalists, and here on this brand new album they show that in absolute abundance, each piece is carefully curated, calmly performed with great skill and intelligence, and the result at the conclusion is one of the finest experiences one could ever wish for in the world of guitar based instrumental music, there can be no other outcome other than a massive chart hit on the horizon for Jim Kimo West & David Vito Gregoli with this bliss filled new release Travelogue.