Randy Roos
Liquid Smoke

Randy Roos is an American guitarist with a long-standing experience, who has traversed various genres as both a composer and side-man, from rock'n'roll to fusion to world music. During the '90s, he collaborates with George Jinda's World News, co-member percussionist of Special Efx (which everyone obviously remembers, otherwise you're in trouble: Jinda is the one immortalized on the covers with his dark glasses) and signs two albums under his own name, which critic Scaruffi describes in his own way as "kaleidoscopes of exquisite taste and subtle effect".

Perhaps. In any case, the album I avidly bought on iTunes is titled "Liquid Smoke", dated 1993, and epically portrays on the cover our Randy wielding his six-string with a foggy sea in the background. The musical style is clearly stated: beautiful acoustic melodies, exotic echoes through the use of percussion, long and emphatic harmonies. They are all well-crafted pieces, well-orchestrated and arranged, never monotonous, although not too demanding to listen to.

"Ferry" emerges, starting quietly and evolving gradually in a choral manner; splendid "Ray's Passage", truly successful in its thriller movie rhythm set in the jungle, decidedly cinematic in its atmosphere of continuous tension. The impressionistic "Newfoundland" owes more to certain new age stylemes, while the final track "Rest Assured" fully reveals Roos's compositional skill, which gives vent to his "subtle effects" to create a dynamic piece, worthy of a soundtrack, that continuously rises and falls. The other tracks, although not standing out particularly like these ones I mentioned, are nevertheless enveloping and fluid to listen to, never repetitive: even if "Copan", perhaps inspired by the great skyscraper in the center of São Paulo, Brazil, seems to put too much meat on the fire starting from a handful of great ideas.

I recommend the album to those who love Special Efx, with their "world fusion" style, or the acoustic tropical melodies in Earl Klugh style, or in general good varied and well-orchestrated music, that relaxes the mind but not so "mellow," as they say in America, as to relegate it to the background. A good solo work, that gave me the incentive to delve into the albums with George Jinda and World News. Sooner or later, I'll review those too.