Regular Columnists

Artist: C Lanzbom
Website: http://www.clanzbom.com/
Genre: New Age
CD Review:
New age, easy listening, acoustic instrumental guitar ­ whatever name you give the latest relaxing work by C, it also has to be called elegant. As ‘We Can Begin’ illustrates, a guitar in the hands of a gentle, unassuming soul has to be worth its weight in television. For it entertains the mind much more subtly, clearly, it falls upon the ears without crude commercialism and harsh, jarring chords that make up so much of life. These Meditations take us out of ourselves, to that quiet patch of country everyone looks for sometime before they die. A place to stretch and think and drift between this world and the next.

Lanzbom is the lead guitarist from Soulfarm, which has opened for Bruce Hornsby, Mickey Hart, and even played some Bill Graham festivals and gigged around the world. If you’re anywhere near Manhattan, you’ve probably heard of them already.

However, even without a Soulfarm to call home, C’s spiritual mood of guitar compositions defines his Israel background a bit. He went there to challenge his mind and sound fingers, and what he brought back to his music is something richly, worldly singular, as ‘Hinei Yamim’ and the nimble ‘Ode Yishoma’ demonstrate so playfully.

I’ve not heard Lanzbom’s two previous solo cds, From This Day On (1998) and Beyond This World (1996), but if they’re anything like the hard work that went into this one, they are well worth having. Ask the 30k people who’ve bought them. He must be doing something right. One decision that makes sense is using a couple of his ol’ Soulfarm cronies on this release (Darren Soloman on acoustic and electric bass, and the occasional violin of Miri Ben-Ari).

But it’s all in the fingers. The fingers of Lanzbom. They make every moment special, every track like the memorizing ‘Mizmor L’David’ a beauty to behold and own and appreciate, again and again.