progressive indie-rock / Singer-Songwriters presents :

Itamar  Ziegler

CD (2002) (more instrumental), CD (2005) (more song album)

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Itamar Music       Itamar  Ziegler : the birds, the sky, the trees... all that shit (US,2005)***'

The second album by Itamar Ziegler (his first was more an instrumental album) has an even stronger sound, which is also more delicate and a bit more acoustic, and more song-based.

“Untitled” is like a political idea, inspired by caring for people, overshadowed by the harsh reality of flag-waving modern new politics making business of war, also protesting about the Palestinian humiliation by Israel (nice to see this word spread by someone born in Israel), based upon a text written by novelist Arundhati Roy.

A few songs have poppy rhythms, like "Sadness", but everywhere you can notice an intelligent use of instruments, arrangements and inspiration, with a good eye for combinations -something which I already noticed on the instrumentals from his solo debute-.

The instrumental "On Hold" almost sounds like classically arranged, again more colourful than written compositions from the often wrongly focused-on-written-notes classically educated. "The score" also has some additional brass arrangement. "Tuki Yosi" is an Israeli song, a cover, and the only non-English song on the album.

A good release with a very attractive sound.

Audio : "Nani's Song", "The Score", "Up Hi"

Info with audio : http://cdbaby.com/cd/itamarziegler2

and http://www.itamarziegler.com/music/solo2.htm and on http://www.myspace.com/itamarziegler

Info : http://www.brooklynrock.com/brooklynrock/bandpage/itamar/ziegler.html

Homepage : http://www.itamarziegler.com/

Itamar Music       Itamar  Ziegler (IS/US,2002)****

Itamar Ziegler is the bass player of various groups, like The Blam, Pink Noise, Shot'nez and Balkan Beat Box (the last one I reviewed on next review page).

I had to listen many times to the solo albums before I could place them well. The first album is a well recorded, partly studio, partly home-made 4 track recording of collected ideas. Knowing that this is the conception of a bass player helps to figure out how these ideas came into existence.Like a singer-songwriter builds up melody and rhythm, and colourful instrumentation to the song-core, Itamar often starts from an interesting bass line (in rock, blues or with an ethnic flavour or idea of origin) and then adds colourful instrumentations and rhythms, and sometimes a song. This perspective gives a different, rather clever-in-sounds style, which is distinctive from many groups. Also telephone messages were used twice to inspire an instrumental, and perhaps now and then an idea for a song. A rewarding album full curious surprises.

Audio : "singalon'","you're like", "suck", "filth", "mud", "arabic surf dance"

Homepage : http://www.itamarziegler.com/ & with audio : http://www.myspace.com/itamarziegler

Info on release and other reviews : http://www.itamarziegler.com/music/solo1.htm

and with more audio (and reviews) : http://cdbaby.com/cd/itamarziegler1

Interview : http://vpinterviews.blogspot.com/2005/10/itamar-ziegler.html