TALES FROM SHEEPFATHER'S GROVE

Last week I received a private message from Johannes Luley in the Prog Archives Forums asking me to listen to his album, so I did it. Although Johannes Luley doesn't give very much detailed information about himself in his personal website, in his Soundcloud website or in his Facebook page (other than he is from Los Angeles and that played in a Progressive Rock band called Moth Vellum before recording this solo CD), I think that his music has a lot of influence from European Progressive Rock music and even some New Age and Folk music influences (influences are inevitable), particularly from artists like Steve Howe (in some of his guitar playing), Jon Anderson's solo music, Mike Oldfield, Vangelis (in the use of some keyboards atmospheres and percussion instruments and patterns), and Steve Hackett and Anthony Phillips (in some guitar playing techniques and atmospheric sounds). He plays all the instruments and sings all the male vocals and he is a good singer. Among the instruments he played in this album are a lot of guitars (mainly acoustic), some keyboards and some percussion instruments, with the exception of a harp which is played by Stephanie Bennett. I think that he is mainly a guitarist but he plays very well the other instruments he uses in this album, although the keyboard sounds are used more for the creation of sound atmospheres and moods, even making the listener to imagine that he is playing his music in a forest because he uses some 'wind sounds' in the background. There are some singers (Robin Hathaway, Kristina Sattler, and Sianna Lyons) who sing very well, mostly doing backing vocals. Some of the backing vocals arrangements are influenced by Mike Oldfield and Jon Anderson, in my opinion. In general, the music is very melodic and atmospheric, and very optimistic in content. I can't say if this album is a conceptual album or not, because I'm not a native English language speaker, and I couldn't find the lyrics in his websites. Anyway, this album is very good, with 'happy moods' most of the time. It is very well recorded and mixed, and with a lot of sound variations and track transitions which work very well as a whole. I think that this album was done very professionally and maybe it took him a lot of time to plan it and to make it. The cover design is well done, and it really reflects the style of the music which the CD contains.