AN OCEAN OF DREAMS

MINDMOVIE is the creative vehicle for German guitarist and composer Achim Wierschem. He's been an active musician for 35 years, and in progressive rock circles he may be best known for his long tenure in Flaming Bess - a band that was formed back in the '70s. "An Ocean of Dreams" is his first venture as a solo artist, in which a score of musical friends from all around the world contribute to fulfill his compositional dreams.

Instrumental melodic rock with an emphasis on guitars and guitar soloing is the name of the game here, with dreamy moods and atmospheres as a general characteristic. It's not an album that will interest those looking for groundbreaking, challenging efforts, but those who enjoy well produced and well made music of this kind with a distinct mainstream tinge to it should find this album worth investigating.

A pseudonym used by German guitarist Achim Wierschem.Wierschem was a member of Flaming Bess, reputedly since 1980, originally as a guest musician, who even appeared in the obcure 83' album by Key, who said to be nothing but a Flaming Bess offshot project.He participated in the reunion of Flaming Bess during the 90's, but he also kept composing material on his own.Encouraged by the long-time gone web community of MI7.com, he decided to record part of his ideas at Arkana Studios in Duesseldorf, a process that lasted over a year.Some of his MI7.com colleagues even took part during the recordings and the album called ''An ocean of dreams'' was released privately at the fall of 2008.

This was a double-CD offering by Mindmovie, containing more of 130 minutes (!!!) of Wierschem's original material.But while this work is over 2 hours long, there little to be said about the music, just because the whole thing is based around Wierschem's guitar work and his versatile style, which includes spacey solos, mellow acoustic lines, virtuosic leads and more melodies deliveries.His influences seem to be PINK FLOYD, CAMEL, JOE SATRIANI and MIKE OLDFIELD, but note that the album has little to do with Flaming Bess' albums.This is guitar-led, mainly instrumental Rock with many different moods and levels of energy, where little contribution comes from the other instruments.Bass and drums are constantly there with a few keyboard colors and sound effects supporting.The music is quite nice, but the overstretched material along with the similarity between the tracks make it a bit tiring along the way.The second disc is credited as a bonus CD, but it is no different than the first one.Its first part is totally captured by guitar instrumentals along the lines of the aforementioned groups and artists, the second part is much weaker with lots of poppy leanings and forgettable, easy-going pieces.

Too much material to handle in a single listening, as some tracks sound rather repetitive.Of course the guitar work of Achim Wierschem ranges from decent to great, but the overall result heads more to guitar specialists than Prog fans...2.5 stars.