A BUNCH OF FOREST SONGS - SELECTED & REVISITED RECORDINGS BETWEEN 1999-2022

Having enjoyed such fruitful collaboration with the Spanish musician Rafael Pacha (both in The Guildmaster project and albums under Kimmo's own PA artist page, plus within The Samurai Of Prog), Kimmo Pörsti insisted they should make a CD consisting of revisited material from Pacha's solo output. The fact that it all has been released in Pacha's Bandcamp page only (with a possibility for an individual listener to order a CD-R version, if I understood) makes it extra rewarding. Add to that the lovely multi-fold cover design by Kimmo Heikkilä!

As Rafael says in his liner notes, there have been two major paths he has followed and combined as a musician, those of Folk (e.g. the Celtic tradition) and of progressive rock. Upon my rather limited amount of listening to his discography, it seems this CD doesn't really attempt to work as a prog-minded "Best of" compilation, even less as a guide to Pacha's album output. The source albums are mentioned - without their release years though - but the liner notes concern his thoughts of the individual tracks and their recordings then and now, with a fondness for various occasional collaborations. Although I'd warmly welcome some overall guideline to his discography as well in this set, this is a fine approach. You really can feel the labour of love attitude of this gifted multi- instrumental musician and composer.

The general atmosphere of this 13 -track set is fairly peaceful and organic, with a modernly clean production similar to above mentioned projects. There ate lots of folk ingredients, especially whistles, recorders and pipes are heard a lot. As a guitarist Pacha uses both acoustic and electric ones.

Stylistic references might include Alan Stivell, Malicorne, early Clannad, the most folk oriented stuff of Mike Oldfield, etc. Warmly recommended, beautiful CD package for any folk-enjoying listener.