Tim Volpicella: Many Places

Good music is. Tim Volpicella’s Many Places is that also because of its appealing good looks and ease of enjoyment. Indeed, it is a visit to assorted musical headlands with akin views of melodious and harmonic spaces, albeit never quite staying in the same place as it truly evokes many musical destinations under Volpicella’s guitar lead.

Spirited, worldly, sensible and sensitive in its own Bluesy meanderings; the particular instrumental configurations, textures, sounds, genre impersonations and fused musical geographies that come through the CD, share different emotive motifs, tempos, chordal progressions and manifestations in each tune. In other words, Volpicella and the adjoining crew work well with varying musical relations and genres while sustaining a group identity and personality of their own through 14 tries. The hints and tinges of varied origins and styles incorporated in the musical compositions portray pictorials within a common wider sonic canvas so to speak. Volpicella doesn’t sound like someone else, nor does his music, although it is not territory musicalized through unfamiliar ruses. Sonic effects and touches enhance its intended wide range of emotive persuasion –as the stringed and vocalized parts show. The CD just wouldn’t reach deeper if it were devoid of the splashes and touches that frame it. Think of them as having a similar relation to plot development as secondary characters in TV and film do.

Sure footed fingering, clean and understandable ideas –even at the freest moments– are clearly apparent throughout the guitar work. Volpicella writes and plays well and his 14 compositions, with their corresponding first-rate performances, attest to that fact. If the compositions, in turn, elicit the prescribed chemistry from the supporting cast, the writing is likely good. Just listen to Russell Ferrante’s doings here for further awareness in that regard. Each showcase in the recording gives you an idea of the facility of Volpicella and friends to become the piece rather than impose themselves on the material. The recording, although not strictly nouvelle cuisine, does dwell squarely in the 21st Century rather than in the past –its echoes notwithstanding.

Many Places, to be sure. Perhaps you should visit them...

Contact: Open Path Music .

Comments