Ozella Rec.
Roger Matura : Time Traveller (D,2005)*'
This is a singer-songwriter album (except for the two bonus tracks) without vocals (!), the introduction says. I understand the idea. 'Singer-songwriting' has a certain range of possibilities of how to accompany a song with instrumental arrangements. The whole album sounds indeed exactly like this.
Roger Matura plays acoustic guitar, e-guitar, piano, mellotron, accordion, harmonica, percussion, accompanied by Klaus Hoffman-Hook on mellotron, Thomas Kagermann on violin, Armin Dahm on mini moog, fender rhodes, Jürgen Goldschmidt on bass, Carsten Krey on guitar, Ean Gidman on brass, Dane Roberts on double bass.
The music varies from various obvious singer-songwriting styles (from acoustic to slightly more rocking, or jazzy), all without voice, to relaxing easy listening or New Age bar-jazz. Most of them are like different “songs” fitting together as in a live performance, like fingers for a glove, and with the same instrumental variety one can expect from a singer-songwriter, only this time the singer simply doesn’t sing. The idea works well for a while. But the easy melodies work a bit too much as like music for a waiting room before something is going to happen, musically or otherwise. The longer the music lasts the more, especially in the what I call barmusic pieces, I really start to miss this extra something on top that will make the true expression it seem to have intended to reveal at some point. The performing group at least doesn’t provide it. It is rather "relaxing music", but then is music with this purpose to still music, beyond being a background, when conceptually stretched over a CD length ? People who need “music” for such a purpose, like waiting room music, won’t ask this more ideological question, instead might find here even the most ideal release, well produced, and arranged with enough variety and alternation, and perhaps even some superlight jazzy humour, to make this work well at least for this purpose. In that case the two songs near the end wouldn’t have been necessary, but they give an idea of the difference when the singer actually appears, somewhat in the shadow of the band, with a smoked whispery sad voice, slightly Americana, not a too strong expressive conclusion after having to wait for this after a whole CD length. The instrumental music itself was time-filling and consuming, with good contrasts and perfect technical balance, without deeper contexts or feelings, but who will care in a teabagdripping moment ? Waiter, I feel relaxed and completely comfortable now, bring me another tea !
