Andreas Vollenweider – Eolian Minstrel
Almost two years ago, MiG – music started re-releasing Andreas Vollenweider’s entire back catalog, with Andreas handling the editing and re-mastering of his life’s work himself.
“Eolian Minstrel” was already something special when it was released back in 1993. It was Vollenweider’s first vocal album: The “classic” Vollenweider-sound combined with the voices and lyrics of the American singer/songwriters Eliza Gilkyson and Carly Simon.
Andreas Vollenweider himself still feels the addition of the element “singing” as an adventure. What may have irritated some of his fans at that time seems more up-to-date than ever before, as Enya, Moya Brennan and Loreena McKennit prove.
What makes “Eolian Minstrel” a special work of Vollenweider are also the excellent instrumentalists, who with great virtuosity and diversity made the album grow into a true cornucopia of sound.
Besides the friends of primeval times, Walter Keiser (drums), Pedro Haldemann (percussion), Christoph Stiefel (organ), Max Laesser (guitars), new impulses can be heard from Marc Portmann (guitars), Eberhad Hahn (wind instruments), Ernst Stroer (percussion), Sandro Friedrich (ethnic wind instruments), Thomas Fessler (guitars, pipa), Richard Greene (fiddle), Matthieu Michel (trumpet). Eliza Gilkyson shines not only as a great singer and co-lyricist on this album, but also with her instrumental skills on guitar and percussion. For the first time, the long-standing friendship with the legendary American songwriter Carly Simon has also borne fruit musically: the joint song “Private Fires”.
Tracklist:
- Song of Isolde 01:42
- Across the Iron River (The Return) 02:43
- Reason Enough (All the King's Men) 04:26
- Eolian Minstrel 05:01
- Jaden Maiden 04:04
- The Secret Shrine of Icarus 00:55
- Harvest 05:21
- The Years in the Forest 03:45
- Desert of Rain 04:27
- Private Fires 04:08
- The Five Sisters 04:48
- Painter's Waltz 04:09
- Leaves of the Great Tree 03:39
- Lake of Time 01:27
Total: 50:35 Min