HEILES LAND

If you like the first four records of Mike Oldfield, wich for me are all masterpieces, you must listen to this music! This record of Hartmut Zinn is very difficult to find but you can listen to it on streaming sites. The beginning of the third song, "Heiles Land Teil I", is very close to the well-known introduction of Tubular bells. Then the musical variations are numerous and very developed during the twenty minutes of this song. All the songs are very good. They are in the spirit of Mike Oldfield's music but still have a personal touch. It is the most beautiful tribute that I know to the albums of Mike Oldield. To discover!

In any case, I love Hartmut's delightful and peaceful guitar play. This album "Heiles Land" was released in 1982 as Hartmut's debut concept album. As everyone knows, a guitar virtuoso Hartmut ZINN has got incredibly inspired by a symphonic progressive rock giant Mike OLDFIELD and his debut gem "Tubular Bells". There would be no doubt about it, especially when we listen to Hartmut's "Heiles Land Teil 1" that definitely reminds us of the similarity to "Tubular Bells" (actually sorry, via this track I cannot feel any innovative texture, except in the last synthesizer-based theatrical phrases). However, "Heiles Land Teil 1" is not the first track in this creation. Although the real reason cannot be found only on his words, we would suggest he had never purely been one of Mike's followers. The first track "Barfuß Im Gras" or "Morgennebel" should express his guitar-oriented essence. Forgive me mentioning my impression but I usually listen to Hartmut's guitar plays mainly via Facebook, and always get immersed in his gorgeous, noble sounds. These 3 minute short songs on the top of both lp sides are not progressive indeed, but feature his splendid sincerity on playing guitar.

And please let me emphasize that his true sound vivacity can be heard just in the last suite "Heiles Land Teil 2", where we can notice his serious activity and melodic sense of diverse tastes. The topnote of this suite is crazy heavy, powerful, and aggressive enough to surprise and amaze us. His guitar play seasoned with ethnicity (often sounds like flamenco ones) recalls Albéniz's "Centos de España". Massive synthesizer sounds are positioned for giving colourful flavour to this colourful stuff. Of course needless to say, his worldwide soundscape can be touched here and there (in this point he would have been influenced by Mike but he should get and have such a musical view as his originality). Not only beautiful nor catchy but complicated and novel are his sound construction / production ... why cannot we feel happy with such a fantastic album? Yes I love his guitar play.