Back to Being Progged!

What with the rediscovery of the eponymous 2003 debut album of Office of Strategic Influence (O.S.I) and getting my hands on their new album “Free”, unearthing the 60’s psychedelic prog unit Arcadium’s only studio album “Breathe Awhile”, not to mention the prog albums in the mammoth list that I added to my kitty some time back, I would have probably not counted on some self-produced samples, singles and an acoustic compilation by a non-mainstream multi instrumentalist hogging some heavy duty music player space in the last couple of weeks. But if you give his stuff a spin, it is not that difficult to fathom why this has been the case. Steve Unruh’s music is the self professed “progressive folk, rock etc“. He offers an explanation “Since progressive rock itself is a combination of rock, classical & jazz, progressive folk/rock is a pretty inclusive style. I added the 'etc' because I dabble in a few other styles as well. (Classical, jazz... 'etc.')”.

He has quite a few solo albums starting with Believe(1997), The Beginning of a new day (1998), Two little Awakenings (2001), Out of the ashes (2004), Song to the Sky (2005) and a couple of instrumental albums, Invisible Symphony (2002) and Instrumental Retrospective (2004) . I would like to get my hands on some of ‘em, which I probably will soon, but right now I had to settle for his classical guitar EP and his sampler compilation that he has hosted on his website. The latter consists of , not surprisingly, a track from each of his albums..

1. Scenes from the Mirror (17:11) [From the album 'Two Little Awakenings']
2. 1 a.m. on a Tuesday (10:47) [From the album 'Song to the Sky']
3. The Water's Edge (2:59) [From the album 'Invisible Symphony']
4. The Rising Sun / Images of Dreams (4:46) [From the album 'Believe?']
5. Returning (10:36) [From the album 'The Beginning of a New Day']
6. Breaking Free (14:09) [From the album 'Out of the Ashes']

My favorite track out of this list is this incredible instrumental voyage called “The Water’s Edge” With its mélange of clear melodies and crisp acoustic sound, it is an absolutely divine experience created by a thoroughly inspired musician. Whereas the next track in this compilation “The Rising Sun/Images of Dreams” showcases a much more neo-prog side of this man’s multi dimensional music while still exploring some folksy tunes. He also offers his classical guitar EP for free download. In fact each track brings out a different edge in its composition style, all infinitely beautiful and never falling into the pit of blatant experimentation.

You end up being more in awe when you realize this is the result of a one man band, not only in terms of composing music displaying a multitude of styles and playing the very many instruments himself, but also in recording and engineering the albums himself. The production quality does not suffer in the process and we have with us a solo effort that will serve as a much needed stimulation for aspiring musicians to…well…just do their thing!

Do drop by his website NOW… http://www.steveunruh.com .Please!