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The Californian label Windham Hill, one of the most controversial of the last thirty years, has produced in equal measure sublime works and unlistenable clunkers, launching with the same attitude exceptional artists (one name above all: Michael Hedges) and charlatans only interested in their bank accounts. Fortunately, time has managed to do its filtering, and while the true artists continued on their path, most of those who had ridden the "New Age" trend rightly ended up in a limbo of supermarket music.
Alex De Grassi definitely belongs to the group of artists worth saving. Master of open tunings, the guitarist, starting from a folk matrix (John Fahey and Leo Kottke among his declared maestros), has then pursued his inspiration in multiple directions, with shy forays into both jazz and South American music. After the excellent "Southern Exposure" and "Turning: Turning Back" (released by Windham Hill), two small monuments to the beauty of the acoustic guitar, and some digressions into the ethno-fusion realm, which nonetheless produced works far from despicable ("Altiplano", "The World's Getting Loud"), he has reduced his production, focusing on studying the instrument, alongside his beloved six-string, the twelve-string guitar and the "Sympitar", a curious guitar equipped with resonating internal strings, of great acoustic impact.
Finally, perhaps dissatisfied with the treatment a major label can reserve for such a peculiar musician, he founded his own label, Tropo Music, with which in 1998 he released "The Water Garden". Here, as in many of his other works, the acoustic guitar, in total solitude, is the absolute protagonist. The opening "Prelude" immediately shows how, based on excellent right-hand work, he knows how to create tight sequences of arpeggios, immersing the listener in a very suggestive flow of notes.
De Grassi has the gift of the greats, that of concealing a superb technique behind apparent simplicity. While lulling us with his clear melodies, he seamlessly weaves rhythm, melody, and harmony ("Another Shore", "Ripple"). Many of the compositions display an austere beauty, almost "classical", with a subtly melancholic vein ("The Water Garden", "Cumulus Rising"). But it's the smile and innocence that triumph when the guitarist immerses himself in the beloved, quintessentially American, acoustic folk of "The Zipper".
The music of the album resembles the crystalline surface of a lake, gently rippled by a warm breeze. Guitar meditations ("Endless Rain"), moments of great peace and inner relaxation, predominantly understated rhythmicity, although he doesn't shy away from more percussive approaches to the instrument, as in "Lost In The Woods" and "Vanishing Point". A work that at a cursory listen might seem monotonous, but instead demands attention, in order to bring out its numerous, small submerged treasures.
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