CD Solidarity -Private Press 50mins
Produced in London by Long Tall J and Co Produced in Delft Netherlands by Emiel Zwaard
The album will be released on Bandcamp and all streaming platforms. Physical cd’s will be available via Bandcamp
Website. www.longtallj.com IncludesTracks To Check Out
Rating 85/100
For more info https://linktr.ee/Longtallj
Solidarity is the fourth album by Jan Lievaart (AKA Long Tall J) titled Solidarity’ It is in all respects a musical feast in which Jan utilises a cohesive gathering of fellow musicians in support of his assembly of this album.
Right from the off (at track 1) you are presented with an album full of colour, bright dynamics and musical arrangements that integrate multitudes of twists and turns incorporating subtle changes of direction. Long Tall’s creative guitar patterns constantly provide the listener with interesting streams of clever note combinations. In turn, such note combinations, firmly draw the focus of attention to these subtle changes in direction. Furthermore, although not immediately apparent, the atmosphere of the music is constantly changing as the score progresses ever forward. This creates an interesting variety of different rock stylisations in swinging from rock, to heavy blues, musical theater, and even forays into country tinged rock. The impact of this multiplex of musical variations providing a creative canvas of many musical colours, indeed a preverbal kaleidoscope of moods and a complete diversity of audio delights.
The overall musical concepts of this album are further enhanced by Jan’s choice of fellow musicians’ In particular the vocalists, Péh Hong Ip and Mariia Arkhipova. They are a wonderful pairing. Not only do they both have magnificent purity of tone but have clear and resonant voices which meld well together in their two duets featured on the album. Their individual performances too are superb and expand the exquisiteness of the music greatly. Jan has informed me that whilst he writes all of the basic music lines. The six vocal tracks were co-written together with the vocalists, meaning that whilst he writes the music, the vocalists actually composed their own melody lines.’ With respect to the vocals Péh Hong writes the lyrics for his parts. However With Mariia it is slightly more complicated requiring a home studio interface of her ‘voice over’s’ to which Jan then eventually adds his lyrics. The system Jan has for both vocalists obviously works really well for him because despite the complexities of the overall musical arrangements the composite parts come together perfectly with bot interesting and well performed vocal accompaniments.
And then of course the nucleus of the studio support band assembled by Jan comprising seven Ukrainian and 2 Dutch musicians
The keyboards, driven by Eugene Moiseienko ,whilst seemingly playing second string behind the exploits of the guitar, is no doubt the glue that holds everything in place, the preverbal lynchpin foundation to the proceedings. The enterprising Kyiv Horns adding sparkle and flavouring of jazz. Wow! , A superb compliment to the overall sound. Sadly, the violin maestro ‘ Julien Heroim’ only features on the first track, a Celtic flavouring to the proceedings. Finally, the percussive engine room of drums and bass expertly delivered by Anton Perniagin, Bart Wijtman .
Summary: An album tending towards the progressive rock side of the spectrum with a multitude of hidden depth revealing such intricacies with subsequent plays. It is indeed an album with hidden charm that can be appreciated over and over again. It is fair to say though that although there are many deviations and different musical paths that followed by the music, the overall sound is not over complicated. It is just good honest composite rock with a distinctly melodic edge and superb vocals.
The underlying theme and catalyst for a good portion of this work is the obscene ludicrousness of war.
