SEAN SIEGFRIED – Backwoods

Sean’s debut album contains six solo acoustic guitar compositions in a very English style. The opener, ‘Sam’s Brewery’, is satisfyingly chunky as is ‘Compelled’. Both employ strong bass lines with occasional forays onto the thin strings. Even though ‘Passionate Rag’ opens with two exploratory descending runs it too settles into a similar pattern and is a really nice track.

His training is film music is evident and your mind’s eye can’t help putting pictures to the sounds. My one criticism is that many of the tracks are too short. ‘Ashill’, for example, is the longest and is developing a new direction when it finishes. Sean has packed a lot of musical ideas into this album and one might say that his self restraint is commendable but I’d like to hear him tackle a major piece.

Backwoods is available as a download – you can play it all on-line too – and as a regular CD. There’s lots of footage of Sean on You Tube, as well, including covers of music by his inspirations Bert Jansch, John Renbourn and Dave Evans.

Dai Jeffries