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review by Bill Binkelman Apparently, I'm one of the few people who had not yet heard Mehdi's music, as this is his eighth album for the Soothing Music label. The artist (piano and keyboards) is joined by other musicians on guitars, cello, flute, violin, hammered dulcimer, as well as The Swiss Philharmonic Orchestra (on strings). You could correctly infer that this is a "big" sounding CD; don't come here expecting gentility or anything approaching a minimalist approach. This is full-blown, dramatic, contemporary instrumental/new age music. I can't pretend to be an expert on more mainstream artists like Yanni or Secret Garden, but from what I've heard of those and others like them, Medhi can stand toe to toe with them. Instrumental Heaven is unabashedly heart-on-the-sleeve romantic music. That it seldom slides into melodrama or mushy overblown bombast, despite its reliance on that big sound, is probably owed to both Medhi's composing abilities as well as whoever produced this CD. This is a fairly varied recording. Mehdi mixes in some world music textures here and there (mostly a Spanish/Mediterranean flavor through the use of acoustic guitar and percussion). He also shows a deft hand for intermixing his electronic keyboards with his piano, such as on the opening "Heaven" (one of the better tracks here). The presence of "real" string instruments (e.g. the cello on the aforementioned "Heaven") helps a lot, too, as cello synth patches are notoriously tricky to nail down. "Bridge to Paradise" is one of the tracks that has a strong Mediterranean flavor. In fact, it starts out sounding like a Chris Spheeris (circa Europa) tune, with Dan Jenks' acoustic guitar dueting with Mehdi's piano and keyboards as well as an undercurrent of ethnic percussion. However, where Spheeris stays put with just those instruments, Mehdi infuses his "full sound" with the injection of orchestral strings. Nothing wrong with that, either, as it does differentiate him from Spheeris. "Flight of the Angels" opens with spacy electronics, lush strings and romantic piano, but heads straight for quasi-Enigma territory when the rhythm track cuts in, becoming a mid-tempo chill-out tune but played out on piano, which is certainly a twist. "Full Moon" begins with thundering Native-influenced drums and swells of new age style keyboards before mixing in the artist's piano, juxtaposing the tribal elements with an overt new age sensibility as more keyboards take over the melody at times. Another Spanish-flavored song is the oddly-titled "Clouds of Light." I was expecting a lofty ethereal electronic keyboard-based new age tune and instead heard a somber slice of acoustic guitar, piano, and sedate lower register strings. Later additional exotic ethnic percussion reinforces the European feel of the track. "Rain" is another one of my personal favorites here, with its mixture of acoustic guitar, classic new age style romantic piano, lilting flute, and slow tempo trap kit drum rhythms. If I had to offer a criticism of this album, it would most likely be the awkward and uninspired title and the hard-to-swallow (even if sincere) hyperbole of the liner notes, which admittedly are strange critiques to have of a music album, I suppose. Admittedly, while the music on Instrumental Heaven Volume 7 didn't grab me and shake me, I did find myself warming to it the more I played it (and especially the more I listened to it directly on headphones, because as background music it's way too vanilla for my tastes). When you actively listen to this CD, you do hear the care and talent that went into it. Surely, this is as good as anything the aforementioned Yanni or Secret Garden has done in the last few years (for Secret Garden it'd beat anything, period). As long as you don't look for subtlety, this album is a solid, if unremarkable, collection of contemporary instrumental music: well-produced and recorded, proficiently performed (even passionately at times), and infused with warm accessible melodies that seldom, if ever, are too sugary or commercial. Now, if they could just come up with a decent title. |
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