Christopher Libertino -
Traveller


(CD 2012, 49:07, Paradox Lost Music)

The tracks:
  1- L'Heure Bleue
  2- Still
  3- We've Come Undone
  4- Departures And Arrivals
  5- Dream Of You
  6- Untie My Heart
  7- Exile Of Dreams
  8- Not Over You
  9- Fall Through You
10- Follow The Light

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Well I think hardly anybody knows Christopher Libertino. However, he is not as unknown as you might think. Can you believe he has already written fifty film scores? Furthermore, he also played guitar on re-mixes for  Roxy Music, Duran Duran, and Gwen Stefani. Well after more than twenty years behind the scenes he felt it was time to record and to release his first solo album. He named it Traveller. It's a kind of Art-Rock travelogue as he describes it himself. The album credits that it was already released in 2012, however two years later I got a copy for a review. Well better late than never as they say!

It turns out that he did everything on his own for this release-the lead vocals, bass, guitar and keyboard parts and also doing the programming for the rhythms, mixing, writing the songs and even doing his own album design. Well that certainly already gives him one thumb up. Let's see if the other thumb goes up for the music he wrote for this release. After hearing the album several times I can only come to the conclusion that my other thumb had to make the same move as the other one. Meaning I certainly liked what I heard on all of the ten tracks. Tracks which have a kind of sound which reminded me of the music made by acts such as Peter Gabriel, David Sylvian, Kate Bush, Thomas Dolby, David Bowie, Brian Eno and Bryan Ferry. Strangely enough, the same names appeared also in his bio as possible musical references. Well I guess I must have got a right ear for possible influences. There are also influences that are also coming from World Music taken from all kind of parts of the globe!

I will not go deeper into the songs separately. But I can tell you that they are all rather mellow and are building towards a kind of musical climax. Something which can be enjoyed all the way through if you are in the right mood for it. So please don't play them if you are in an aggressive mood and want something out of you system. The vocal performance on the album resembles Bryan Ferry most of the time.

Christopher's goal for the album was to synthesize the wide-screen cinematic sounds of his film writing with evocative lyrics and musical styles that include electronica, industrial, alternative and ambient music and with hints of African, Caribbean and Middle Eastern music as well. I guess he succeeded very well in his goal because that's just what I heard almost fifty minutes long on a debut on which he can be very proud of. Highly recommended to those who enjoy the music made by the already mentioned acts such as Peter Gabriel, David Sylvian, Kate Bush, Thomas Dolby, David Bowie, Brian Eno and Bryan Ferry!

***+ Henri Strik (edited by Robert James Pashman)

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