CHINA ROSE

1963-born American Pete Prown became mostly known as a long-time journalist for music magazines focusing on the guitar.He started his journey back in early-90's as an editor in chief of the Guitar Shop magazine and then became a gear editor to Vintage Guitar magazine.Moreover he has published some personal, guitar-related books, mainly with historical notes.But he also set up his personal musical point of view in mid-00's with Guitar Garden, a project, for the first album of which he was helped by Rich Maloof on fingerstyle-electric guitar/harmonica, Brett Bottomley on acoustic-electric bass, Steve Puglia on keyboards and Jon Gannon on percussion with Prown handling multiple instruments.Its title was ''Chinese rose'', self-published in 2005.

The title of the album and the Chinese ideograms on the front cover leave no doubts about the Asian orientations of this work, so one thing to become fully clear in a blink of an eye is the leanings of this effort towards World-Chinese Music.But Prown had delivered the style in a pretty much OLDFIELD-ian way with a strong electric enviroment and background, including some jazzy and orchestral/New Age influences.So, the album functions pretty much as follows: Almost every track in here contains a good bunch of traditional, Chinese tunes, performed on samplers or acoustic instruments, featuring a decent keyboard background and these tunes will soon lead to a sensitive, electric explosion, led by Prown's guitar, flavored always by a strong melodic content and flirting often with some jazzy and slightly symphonic underlines.One thing I do not like much are the sampled orchestrations, which sound flat and thin.Fortunately the things to like in ''Chinese rose'' are much more, starting from the flawless guitar solos of Prown, the wonderful traditional bits and the ethereal soundscapes with the acoustic instruments in evidence.I am kind of reminded of EUREKA's works listening to this album and the beautiful combination of World Music and Progressive/Art Rock.

Besides being an accomplished veteran journalist Prown prooves to be an excellent composer as well.Modern Ethnic Prog of nice quality with some fine and dreamy instrumental deliveries.Warmly recommended.