A Passionate Landscape

The landscape in question here is undoubtedly that of Wales, the home of guitarist and composer Dylan Fowler. But, perhaps deliberately, the aerial image of a sparse, craggy landscape that adorns the cover of this album looks at first glance like a Saharan dune rather than the Welsh peak it really is. Fowler’s instrumental music has a similar shape-shifting quality, so seamlessly does he pull other instruments and music traditions into his complex, spacious pieces. In his first solo release for ten years, Fowler’s acoustic guitar is the dominant voice. Moufadhel Adhoum’s oud and Azzedine Jazzouli’s hand percussion lend an Andalusian, Moorish flavour to tracks such as the opener ‘Three Snakes Leaves’, a lusty medieval jig. In total contrast, the majority of the second half of the album features contemplative, solo pieces in which a feeling of closeness to Fowler’s homeland surfaces. ‘Inish Ni’, for instance, is a skipping tune accompanied by a skittering beat of guitar strings. The final track, ‘Tear’, introduces a whole new element with a kantele (Finnish dulcimer) and high-pitched cymbals joining piano and bass for a jazz suite. It’s an appropriately disorientating end to an album of knotty, intriguing music.