Categories: Music

Toulouse Engelhardt’s New CD Mind Gardens Comes Alive at Alvas

Review by B. Noel Barr, Music Writer Dude

Twelve-string, finger-style guitarist Toulouse Engelhardt returns to Alvas Showroom Nov. 21 for a concert supporting his new CD Mind Gardens.

Engelhardt’s Mind Gardens is a work of sublime beauty and grace. Each track takes one into the world of acidic neo-folk music. He subtitles this recording as “13 Novelettes of Space, Time and Contemplation” is not as odd as it may sound.  It is a musical story played with a dramatic whimsy of surrealist tone poems, which have a beginning, middle and end.

His opening track, “Nierika,” is a textured piece that places the listener in a contemplative mood for a journey to your mind. Where in theTheme to The First Annual Bluebelly Lizard Roundup,” the 12-string maestropicks up the pace with a delightful frenzied round up of critters that one could only imagine.

Track 10, “Lady of The Light” is about the tale of a lighthouse keeper’s wife who died or a woman who committed suicide along the cliff’s at the Point Vicente Lighthouse. There are various stories on the sightings of this woman in a white dress with long, wet, black hair. Here we have a song with emotion and wonder.

Engelhardt as  “The Segovia of Surf” doesn’t fail us with his version of Dick Dale’s “The Wedge.” Its wild Gypsy rhythms cutting through the air like a surfer switching back and forth on the waves along the Palos Verdes coast. Totally bitchin’ bro!

The closing track is a duet with an alto flute, “Dialogue With An English Rill” is a gorgeous song dedicated to his British bride.

 

Mind Gardens  is a sonic treat for acoustic guitar lovers, Engelhardt will be bringing this album to life at Alvas Showroom on Nov. 21.

Details:www.alvasshowroom.com

 

Reporters Desk

Recent Posts

“Is ICE Planning My Deportation? A Citizen’s Crisis in a Post-Constitutional America”

The terrifying irony is that, as a U.S.-born citizen, I now fear the agency originally…

4 hours ago

Art, Authenticity vs. Hypocrisy Why the Arts Matter to Downtown Communities

It is far past time for the SPPOA, the San Pedro Chamber, and the LA…

4 hours ago

Many Winters Gathering of Elders

The MWGOE plays a vital role in the Native community of greater Los Angeles, with…

21 hours ago

Gal Pals & Pet Pals: Storytellers & Rescuers Unite for a Night of Community

In 2024, GIF students turned their cameras toward their own community, creating a documentary project…

21 hours ago

$50 Million in Community Benefits Funding Actually Moving Ahead

  Almost one year ago, on Oct 29, 2024, the Port of LA announced it…

22 hours ago

Ai Weiwei’s Turandot

The revolutionary artist and iconoclastic activist’s selection of this opera, once banned in China, aligns…

22 hours ago