Sandy Bull
Fantasias For Guitar And Banjo

It's difficult to express in words the sensations that music sometimes gives us. Probably there are no terms to describe how much beauty and mystery a simple melody contains. If it's true that music is not "just" music, but something more ambitious, a tool to dig into our minds, to travel to distant worlds, to feel unique emotions that are otherwise unimaginable, then we can consider it a true form of art. In my opinion, the term masterpiece is associated with those musical compositions that prove this statement true. Thus, we can assert that "Happy Sad" by Tim Buckley is a masterpiece, as well as "White Light/White Heat" by V.U. (just to name a few, the first ones that come to mind). Since the debaser's database is full of these reviews, I'd like to review "Fantasias For Guitar And Banjo" (1963), also a masterpiece, at least in my judgment.

The album I'm about to review, I feel it's necessary to say, is by Sandy Bull, a '60s avant-garde folk musician, unknown to most.

The album opens with its most precious gem, "Blend", performed with guitar and drums (Billy Higgins). Perhaps it's impossible to describe its charm and majesty, just as it's impossible to express in words what love or death is (although some have come close). It's like a vortex that envelops you, a long 22-minute suite that simply asks to be listened to with an open mind. You can hear the calls of a world we don't know, perhaps the call of man himself; it's a journey through ancient and distant worlds, faces of people from other eras appear to us, so unknown yet so familiar.

and that flower will no longer be just a flower, but a delicate living being;
the 'wanderer above the sea of fog' will no longer be just a painting,
but our portrait, like that of every lone and lost man;
and the wind will no longer just blow, but caress the leaves
like a mother caresses her child;
and that poignant music: every note of that guitar is a continuous
plunge into the infinite, a pursuit of truth at the speed of light.

The phases of calm alternate with fast and labyrinthine accelerations, so that we don't even have time to catch our breath.
At the end, as our consciousness awakens, we spontaneously ask ourselves: "but did twenty minutes really pass? Did I perhaps dream? And who were those people who populated my mind?"

The album features other tracks, more negligible, as they do not convey the same emotions that we just experienced. Classical music pieces alternate with more easy-listening tracks like "Carmina Burana Fantasy", "Gospel Tune", and "Little Maggie".

A little-known album, but worth rediscovering.

PS: I rated this album 4, but actually, it's a 4.5. I didn't give the highest rating because I reserve that for a few albums... Cheers!