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LP
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AOHRAR 001LP
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IS offers a world of micro-trance subtleties as well as epic landscape raga journeys all brought to you on both six and twelve steel-string guitars. With multiple releases all around the globe Steffen Basho-Junghans offers a very unique approach to the instrument. Not simply trying to be just another John Fahey and while taking clear influence from Robbie Basho, treads his own path from experimental simplistic minimal space to unexplainable complex finger picking (but never for the sake of it) as Basho said "soul first -- technique later". Basho-Junghans has been forging unprecedented ground within the solo guitar world over the last few decades where his output has covered everything from John Fahey style finger-picking, epic pieces influenced by Indian ragas to minimalist micro-trance adventures capable of taking your consciousness beyond the limitations of time. IS comfortably straddles Steffen's two mainstays: transcendental landscape ragas and experimental excursions that take the steel-string guitar to places that it has never been before. For example the finishing track on the album "...and like Wind we go", is a scratchy textural piece, that while devoid of any obvious melody has a striking atmosphere that will get the hairs on the back of your neck standing on end. 200 gram super deluxe heavy weight vinyl; includes digital download.
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LP
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AOHRAR 002LP
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Steffen Basho-Junghans is a steel-string guitar maestro that has spent the last 50 years honing his craft. Growing up in the wild and natural landscape of Thuringia, in GDR Germany has greatly influenced his work and connection to nature. Being on the eastern side of the then still standing Berlin wall meant that 17-year-old Steffen Junghans had to teach himself the guitar by listening to the rare and much coveted dubbed-cassette tapes that managed to make it over the wall. "Outside" music might have been hard to come by but ensured that he had to go "inside" and carve his own special path. While John Fahey's Takoma-school of American Primitive can be heard in his playing, none can be held in higher esteem than his name-sake Robbie Basho. He was so taken by the spirituality within Robbie Basho's music, complimented by the power of the 17th-century Japanese poet Matsuo Bashō's poetry that he took on the name "Basho" to ensure Robbie's name and (more importantly) the power of his music was not forgotten.
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CD
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PRE 007CD
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2005 release. The Preservation label presents Unknown Music II - Transwarp Meditation, from Steffen Basho-Junghans. The passion for exploratory acoustic music has been with Steffen Basho-Junghans for a long time. Based in Berlin, Steffen has been one of the most searching artists in the ever-increasingly loose folk idiom for over two decades. His work on the six and twelve-string guitar makes him a modern-day counterpart to great trail-blazers John Fahey and Robbie Basho, from whom he takes his name as a creative talisman. While experimentation is a feature of Steffen's playing, the soul of acoustic guitar tradition is there in equal measure. With boundless imagination, his technique takes in American folk, Eastern raga and Western classical harmonics but also resonates with the inspiring power of free jazz. His Unknown Music series features what he describes as his most personal excursions yet, containing some of his most stirring and unique compositions. While some pieces are relentlessly intense, there's an undeniable beauty at their core, found as equally in those that curl out with complex, but softer melodic measure. The percussive qualities of his sound heighten its hypnotic feel in a space created from, and for, pure feeling above all. Unknown Music II is much more than just a set of psychedelic overtures. It's a work of deep spiritual vision that comes from having travelled far down an exceptionally individual path.
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