NATURAL CAUSES

Like the earlier "Northern Songs" album, this 2010 "Natural Causes" project, is quiet underrated, by the few that have rated this "small wonder". I suspect that the Jazz/Fusion followers, don't feel the "dynamics" so close to the style, maybe, I suppose.

Anyway, if you are an acoustic guitar player or audiophile, or both, Steve Tibbetts, is someone you should be aware of. His style as such, is really not Jazz nor Fusion, as I have mentioned, it is closer to the "New Age" or "Ambient" taggings, which of course has a lot of good as bad exponents. Tibbetts's "Natural Causes" , is close to the best those kind of music genres generated and all he offered back in return to the same.

So to pin-point somehow his sound, I who dislike unnecessary comparissons, would try to make you think of an example. Imagine the John McLaughlin (Shakti) kind of ensemble (less the violin), with a far better sense of music-composition and less flash, with a bit of the very naked-like sound of "Oregon", wrapped in the "spiritual/ambiental" approach of Steve Roach's music, compressed in perfectly written songs, that turn out to be each one as good as the other. In a flawless "instrumental" effort, closer I insist, to the ambiental environments, which of course, I would hardly consider "Jazz/Rock or Fusion" as such.

Therefore, it does not hold any of the "protocols" or "pirouettes" of the Jazz/Rock/Fusion genre. Its "fusion" value, consist mainly in the very moderate use of native "mid-western" instruments, but mainly as parts of acoustic guitar compositions, perfectly and original acoustic guitar songs performed by an unpretentious virtuoso, that also knows how to write excellent close to masterful pieces.

****4.5 PA stars . And yes,I insist, this could hardly be tagged Jazz or Rock, although it is all Prog!