String Dreams By Dieter Spears

 

String Dreams

By

Dieter Spears

Written by

Steve Sheppard

 

In the growing world of instrumental music there are many artists like myself, who are crossing genres and being truly inventive with their compositions and arrangements, this can be said for Wayfarer Music Group owner and artist Dieter Spears, his brand new album is a veritable scrapbook of his adventures and journeys around the US as a photographer.

The thematic breakdown begins from the very first piece called Across the Plains; this exploratory track is a shining example of truly good instrumental music utilising guitar, percussion, and synths and a palpable bass, making for a perfect starting composition to this fine journey of sight and sound.

The entire album is a cornucopia of musical delights, like the following narrative entitled Timezone Lounges; I have been in a few of these myself over the years, there is something full flowing and fluent about the progression on this piece, which offers an almost Berlin style electronic backdrop to a largely guitar driven creation.

In The Shadow of Castleton fascinated me, the opening segment reminded me of the mood that opens Shine on Crazy Diamond by Pink Floyd and would be one of my personal favourites from the album, the build here is deep and mood field, the intent here is on mood, pacing, and emotional atmospherics.

Then comes my favourite track from the entire album called Back Porch Morning Coffee, and the somewhat mournful guitar reminded me of Scottish progressive rock artist Ali Ferguson. The use of pause here combined with the interesting hovering synths brought an easy on the ears, yet deeply reflective composition to drift within, this is one I could easily leave on repeat or indeed have a coffee to in the early haze of a summer’s morning in June.

Desert Sunset Shimmer creates a musical tale for right now for me, as the temps rise in the middle of a summer’s day in the Mediterranean, one can see that heat shimmer dancing along the horizon of time and tide. The electronic mastery and percussive elements here add to Spears guitar, so let’s give a mention to drummer Gary LeGere who features heavily on this amazing powerful release.

Nestled just over the half way marker is the track Lullaby Breeze, and is the most ambient offering from the album, an arrangement that is almost meditative and hypnotic in its content, the deep resonating bass is beautifully juxtaposed with the lighter electric guitar of Spears.

Riding The Dragon is our next musical location, here we find a far more upbeat tale told by Spears, the keyboards in this piece manifests a trickledown effect, whilst the bass drives the engine room with the percussion on this powerful forward thinking narrative of instrumental genius.

We now move into the deeper waters of the album with the following voyage of plenty as we arrive at the piece entitled, Mahone Bay Memories feat. Stephen Davis. This is a memorable piece and an almost hovering narrative which strangely reminded me of one of my pieces called Sea Salter Marsh with the similar guitar sound, in this instance provided by the aforementioned Stephen Davis.

When Trees Became Mountains is our penultimate offering from this 10 track release, this would turn out to be another favourite of mine, the pacing of the guitar sounds and lead on this piece were incredibly moving and almost took me back to a sound and style I used to hear in the ‘90s, again that hovering synth work can be found here, one that brings such mood and colourful textures.

So we reach the final and concluding narrative from the album and it is called Chasing Dusk, the energy here is on the hurry up, and reminded me of UK artists like Andy Pickford and Michael Shipway at times. This flying last creation if more rock based, and its tempo somewhat suggests the title of the track is hurriedly being achieved, once again, this is a fine example of someone choosing the right track to end the album with, in a stylish and powerful coda.

String Dreams by Dieter Spears is a clever play on words, and indeed a clever album; I have always had a lot of respect for Dieter, I should have, my first album takes me back to 2012 and called Le Carnavale Du Macabre. Here on String Dreams we have an exploratory tale of a voyage of an artistic endeavour taken, and each and every track on the release has that fresh energy of excitement built into its full flowing narrative, one can see with ease that Dieter Spears is going to have a big hit on his hands with String Dreams, and he certainly deserves to achieve that too.