Ansgar Dälken

Ansgar Dälken - acoustic steelstring guitar (solo without overdubs)

Recorded, mixed and mastered 2002 by
Peter Finger and Gerald Oppermann at
Acoustic Music Studio, Osnabrück, Germany

Produced by Ansgar Dälken and Peter Finger

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"With his third solo CD Ansgar Dälken has finally and irrefutably established his position in the top league of European fingerpicking guitarists.

A purely solo CD, Llaneza shows all facets of his immaculate technique and above all his compositional skills - a guitarist/composer in the best tradition of such luminaries as Egberto Gismonti, Ralph Towner and Peter Finger.

The pieces display a maturity and depths of expression which transport the listener to different moods and worlds. The compositions are cleverly constructed, but not academic, and with each listening there are always new details and nuances to discover.

Ansgar Dälken has combined feeling and emotion with virtuosity and creative ability to produce a very musical and inspiring work. I warmly recommend it to all guitar fans and fans of good music in general."

Ian Melrose

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Llaneza is the sweet-sounding name of Ansgar Dälkens new CD, an unusual name which describes a state where exotic and familiar things influence each other positively – nomen est omen. After his debut album „Madeleine“ on Peter Fingers „Acoustic Music Records“ label three years ago, Dälken has brought forth an a album which is totally enthralling and captivating – twelve simply irresistible solo guitar pieces without tricks or safety nets. And Dälken with his acoustic Scharpach-guitar is a very special artist: he really does manage to make exotic sounds feel familiar and to lend familiar sounds an exotic touch. He is no propagator of superficial virtuosity, but rather an extremely appealing expert of great sincerity, as was the recently deceased Cal Collins in the realms of pure jazz.

What this means becomes clear from the first track - „Coming Home“ - onwards: in almost exclusively cellar-deep open tunings Dälken creates unpolished diamonds, not squeaky-clean aerodynamics. „Coming Home“ has an almost swing-like drive, a composition that'd knock the socks off the overtly ethereal aesthetics as often practised by the Californian Windham-Hill- label fraction. Dälken doesn’t drown himself and us in the cult of pure beauty.

He amazes us with authenticity as in “Behind the Mask”, where he wields Spanish touches and North-American slurs like a painter with a brush, dabbing something here, joyously sweeping across the canvas there. It sounds so fresh and improvised, as if he has spontaneously written film music. These are landscapes of a sensitive spirit, who is not trying to create a cult about himself.

In the title-track “Llaneza” he weaves long rows of alternatively expressive and meditative single notes, which gradually – including all rough edges and sharp peaks - converge and intensify harmonically, whereas only three pieces further on, in “The Stone”, he takes the reverse route and develops soft single lines out of chords, until you can tune in to the hidden depths of his musical soul. This melting pot of musicality provides enormous dramatic tension in e.g. “The Diver”, where Gismonti-esque complexity resolves amazingly into simple triads, which are however never banal. Fabulous!!

Or he shows us surprisingly clearly where his spiritual roots are: namely North America, folk and a little bit of redneck. No less fabulous.

In the last piece “Le temps retrouvé” he sadly bids farewell. Sadly, because here he brings everything together, lets this whole melting pot flow and blend into something so beautiful, that there is simply nothing comparable. Yes, that is his music: a wonderfully unpolished, but astonishingly personal shining diamond, a masterpiece of sincerity and of non-conformism – two qualities which are rare in the current acoustic guitar scene. "

Alexander Schmitz, Jazzpodium 2/2003

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"Wie viele leibliche Kinder Pierre Bensusan hat, spielt hier keine Rolle; die Zahl seiner geistigen Kinder erscheint jedenfalls inzwischen unüberschaubar. Auch Ansgar Dälken darf man wohl dazu zählen, so entspannt und melodiös, wie sich der Deutsche hier leicht mediterran angehauchten Kompositionen auf einer offen gestimmten Stahlsaitengitarre hingibt. Schon das Motto des argentinischen Dichters Jorge Luis Borges für das Album zeigt: Hier musiziert jemand, der über den Tellerrand der Clubs oder des Konservatoriums hinausschaut. Dieser Eindruck bestätigt sich im Opener – gelassener Kontrast zwischen locker rhythmischem Bass und einer tänzerisch heiteren Melodie im Diskant. Sowohl der warme Ton, dem Dälken stets ein klein wenig Vibrato mit auf den Weg gibt, als auch das melodische Gespür bleiben dabei charakteristisch für das Album, das gänzlich ohne Mittelmeer-Klischees auskommt und dennoch den Duft verwunschener Pinienhaine ausströmt. Bezeichnenderweise ist das Titelstück eine Ballade sozusagen aus einem alten Garten, auch wenn Dälken durchaus etwas anders kann: Die „Roots“ kommen in überraschend flinker Gangart daher, „Night of Miracles“ bricht plötzlich in einen schönen Rhythmus aus. Vorherrschend bleiben aber wundersame, zauberhafte Melodiebögen, die Ansgar Dälken auf einer schönen Steelstring von Theo Scharpach wie versunken in stiller Betrachtung des Pflanzenreichs intoniert. Und es macht Spaß, sich mit Dälken in diese Welt zu versenken."

Michael Lohr, Akustik Gitarre 02/03

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"The pieces on this purely solo guitar album dance, pearl and waft in a most atmospheric, clear and graceful way through Dälkens guitaristic garden, which in itself is full of beautiful smells, colours and secrets."

Folker

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"Ansgars compositions do sound homely, pieces you would almost like to curl up on the sofa with. His guitar often sounds like a whole orchestra, which he knows how to conduct. As Bensusan says, it is the feeling for the space and time between the notes, this balance between different moods, which makes Dälkens music special."

Concerto

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