Oceana

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