Monder, Ben / Oceana
Album: Oceana   Collection:Jazz
Artist:Monder, Ben   Added:Oct 2005
Label:Sunnyside Communications  

A-File Activity
Add Date: 2005-10-30 Pull Date: 2006-01-01 Charts: Jazz
Week Ending: Dec 25 Dec 18 Nov 27 Nov 20 Nov 13 Nov 6
Airplays: 1 1 1 2 2 1

Recent Airplay
1. Aug 25, 2006: Memory Select
Oceana
4. Nov 24, 2005: Trip Over (Athertonian) Bloodstains
Rooms Of Light
2. Dec 23, 2005: Memory Select
Rooms Of Light
5. Nov 18, 2005: Memory Select
Oceana
3. Dec 16, 2005: Memory Select
Oceana
6. Nov 18, 2005: beat.net chapter 26.0: winter
Still Motion

Album Review
Craig Matsumoto
Reviewed 2005-11-03
Jazzy guitar with unusual twists. Monder plays a fast, dense style that's at once easy on the ears and sometimes hard to follow -- at his best, his stuff is gorgeously confusing (track 3). He also packs some more conventional tricks, such as the Americana-infused solo on #1 or the rock turns on #6, but there's not much here that you would classify as mainstream jazz guitar.

Tracks 1 and 5 are solo guitar. 3,4,6,7 add drums and bass for a nice trio setting. Theo Bleckman contributes atmospheric wordless vocals on most tracks.

1- Acoustic solo. Rapid fingerpicking; fast tumbling arpeggios
2- Choral-sounding vocal interlude
3- Fast-paced track packed with long, tangly waves of guitar. Dreamy, with an incongruous drum solo near the end.
4- Tumbling mid/fast melody, close to conventional jazz
5- Electric solo. Gentle chiming with dissonant and vaguely disturbing chords. Playful or dark, depends on your mood.
6- Grinding rock guitar, a dark prog sound. Gets gentler later on.
7- Delicate, slow

Track Listing
1. Still Motion   4. Echolalia
2. Light   5. Double Sun
3. Oceana   6. Rooms Of Light
  7. Spectre