{"id":25188,"date":"2023-04-30T05:30:40","date_gmt":"2023-04-30T09:30:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/?p=25188"},"modified":"2023-04-26T09:56:24","modified_gmt":"2023-04-26T13:56:24","slug":"album-review-stephan-thelen-fractal-guitar-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/2023\/04\/30\/album-review-stephan-thelen-fractal-guitar-3\/","title":{"rendered":"Album Review: Stephan Thelen &#8212; Fractal Guitar 3"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-25189\" src=\"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/04\/thelen_fractal3.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"350\" height=\"350\" srcset=\"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/04\/thelen_fractal3.jpg 350w, http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/04\/thelen_fractal3-300x300.jpg 300w, http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/04\/thelen_fractal3-150x150.jpg 150w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 350px) 100vw, 350px\" \/>The idea that classical music and popular forms of music can coexist isn\u2019t a new one. The Moody Blues bridged the gap between the two with <a href=\"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/2017\/12\/14\/a-look-back-at-days-of-future-passed-with-founding-moody-blues-ray-thomas-and-mike-pinder-part-one\/\"><i>Days of Future Passed<\/i><\/a> in 1967. Electric Light Orchestra explored that space on their albums, at least up until 1977. On the much artier side of things, Glenn Branca\u2019s guitar orchestrations drew from both classical and prog\/metal, but while supremely fascinating, they\u2019re too challenging for the general listening public.<\/p>\n<p>As I\u2019ve noted before (in my reviews of <a href=\"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/2021\/07\/18\/album-review-stephan-thelen-fractal-guitar-2\/\"><i>Fractal Guitar 2<\/i><\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/2022\/04\/18\/hundred-word-reviews-for-april-2022-part-1-2\/\">a remix album<\/a> and <a href=\"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/2020\/12\/17\/kronos-quartet-on-thelens-circular-lines-and-kronos-50-for-the-future\/\">a piece on Kronos Quartet<\/a>), Stephan Thelen is a classical composer. But he\u2019s also a fascinating practitioner of instrumental progressive rock. His latest release, <i>Fractal Guitar 3<\/i>, presents five compositions (plus a remix\/edit of one), with Thelen playing electric guitars and keyboards throughout. He\u2019s joined by some impressive players; touch guitarist <a href=\"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/?s=reuter\">Markus Reuter<\/a> and multi-instrumentalist <a href=\"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/2014\/05\/29\/book-review-joe-meeks-bold-techniques\/\">Barry Cleveland<\/a> chief among them.<\/p>\n<p>The music is demanding, to be sure. But it\u2019s possessed of an accessible character that\u2019s rooted in rhythm and melody, making it an enjoyable listening experience even for those not inclined toward prog. Shades of EDM find their way into the arrangements, but at its heart <i>Fractal Guitar 3<\/i> doesn\u2019t sound of a particular time, and will likely age better than any random EDM track might do. It\u2019s intriguing, contemplative, atmospheric, rocking, frightening and sublime, heavy and light, sometimes all in one track. Recommended.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The idea that classical music and popular forms of music can coexist isn\u2019t a new one. The Moody Blues bridged the gap between the two with Days of Future Passed [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":25189,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[40,49,56,65],"tags":[265,1410,5123],"class_list":["post-25188","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-instrumental","category-new-release","category-prog","category-review","tag-barry-cleveland","tag-markus-reuter","tag-stepahn-thelen","cat-40-id","cat-49-id","cat-56-id","cat-65-id","has_thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25188","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25188"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25188\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25192,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25188\/revisions\/25192"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25189"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25188"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25188"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25188"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}