Label: unsigned

Producer: Samy Elgazzar

Release Date: May 09 2005

©2005 Samy Elgazzar

There are some absolutely fabulous international composers and musicans knocking about and Honest Touch tend to do most of their knocking about in Athens, Greece. Thanks to the borderlessness of the internet however, Honest Touch might just as well be right next door and now I'm going to tell you why I wish they were... y'see, this very gifted and scandalously skilled contemporary classical composer/musician ensemble can move you to the kind of tears you never thought you had. There's some of the most beautiful piano and keyboard work I've heard in years that's balanced and embraced by equally powerful and vivid arrangements and orchestrations. Then there's the astonishing production and engineering work that kinda forces you into a corner you'd never want to be away from for too long! Ladies and gentlemen... Honest Touch - Memories From A Dream..

Prologue: Let Love Soar is our introduction to Honest Touch and their very determined approach to excellence and beauty in contemporary honesty and passion in music. The track opens with naturalized atmosphere fx and some truly beautiful piano work laced with incidental and gently arranged percussion and sring work. It's quite an amazing piece for it's originality and for the shared enchanted vision that the writers kept control of throughout the production.

A Lonely Ride is the stuff of award winning soundtracks with it's delicate embrace between piano and string moments that are intricately balanced and paced by some truly fine bass and percussion work. It's quite an emmotive piece with a kind of yearning between each and every note that the comoser deigned to write down. A superb challenge to any composer in the genre, and yet Samy Elgazzar weaves through the arrngement with a seemingly effortless resolve.

Dancing Under The Moon is the track that made me wish I could have Samy and friends living right next door if only for the fact that I could hear them rehearse while I was doing the garden! It's an incredible track is this... again, the piano accompaniment coupled with some superb strings work and a sensuous whisp of Marita Paparizou's angelic and enchanting vocal are truly spellbinding in effect and expression! A brilliant piece of work Samy!

Moments With You is another anthem of excellence but with a more upbeat and contemporary feel. The string work is exciting, gripping stuff and I can imagine the musicians having a whale of a time working on this one. It's quite an extraordinary piece with very a very sharp insight on the composer's part into how well combinations of drums, strings, and piano can be made to be every bit as exciting as anything currently gracing the music scene. There are elements of European gypsy-like violin flavourings and the added contrast of finely intricate piano and string ensemble bits all the way from that mixing desk in Athens.

Like The Wind, The Wave & The Sand is a more melancholy reflection with it's focus on the very crucible of human emmotion. Again, the musicanship is completely beyond weakness or flaw and the production is as mesmerizingly and electrifyingly tight as they come. The cascading huge orchestra moments that arrive at around the two minute mark include some excellent guitar work blended finely into the mix where the outstanding percussion and strings reside.

Autumn Tear meanwhile, is a heart and soul enhancing, mind and spirit embracing work of art in itself. I cannot believe the sheer skill and ingenuity in this composition. The arrangement is spectacular, the production and engineering superb, but the musicanship is comletely and utterely astonishing. It's one for the movies folks!

And A Time For War..! is essentially the composer's perceptions of imagery, compassion, and empathy with one of the most undesirable and unwelcome themes of our current existence... the consequences and utter senselessness of war. To have music so beautifully crafted to this kind of theme is perhaps a little like walking on thin ice but then art has it's anchor in the experience of living and the memories of that vocation. Samy has handled the emmotive arrangements very well indeed but the true power in this piece belongs to the theme it's been aquanted with and the way in whihc the musicians have become synchronized to that endeavor.

Luce Lontana is quite a remarkable piece of work. Here we have a return to the beautiful classical vocal work mastered by the wonderfully gifted and blessed Marita Paparizou. Wouldn't you just love to sit in the park on a lovely day and see this entire album being perfomred live right in front of you? Of course you would... it's the kind of transfusion not many composers have the ability to administer!

Withering Wish has something bright and breezy and lovable about it and I think I'd be right in assuming that the piece was inspired by the composer's expereience of that hazardous yet incredibly magnetic emotion. Sweeping meandering strings grace the skies above the pianist Fofi Maniadaki's fingertips and the entire movement becomes entwined in her magic and gracefulness at the keyboard. It's a work of truly monumental effort and realization that composers like Samy Elgazaar have come to know, love, and share with the rest of us.

The album's monolithic title track - Memories From A Dream is perhaps the most enchanting piece on the album. With carefully crafted string arrangements and dynamically infused piano and percussion, the track evolves into a symphony of sensual delight as well as an example of pure, unadulterated contemporary classical excellence. This is without a doubt, my favourite track on the album so far, and one which Honest touch must be truly proud of.

Then You Came is a piece of music that's captured love in a jamjar and sprinkled it's essence across frets, strings, drum skins and piano keys in an effort to mesmerize the performers and listeners simultaneously. The music reaches just about every sense of well being a human being can possess and it does so in a very very pleasure enhancing fashion! A Promise Forever on the other hand, does not place any demands on your attentive ears whatsoever you just go there willingly and take your heart, soul, and spirit along for the ride! It's a brilliantly arranged piece, but then what track on this magnificent album isn't?

Epilogue: Lay All Your Love On Me is Samy's instrumentally superior version of Benny Andersson & Björn Ulvaeus (Abba) sensationally successful song of the same name. What Samy does that's intrinsically remarkable is that he takes the orginal and breathes life into it much to the delight of our audio senses and to the delight of our most cherished imaginings and sentiments. Watch out for the spellbindingly brilliant string work in particular!

I'd say I've been honestly touched by Honest Touch. They've brought an album into the world that any sensible and responsible parent of music would be ecstatically pleased with. They've also managed to take impossibly complex musical phrases and turn them into works of art and simplicity to the ears. I've had the enormous pleasure of working with some of the world's most excellent instrumental artists in recent years and I have to say that it's an absolute pleasure for me to have reviewed this magnificent album on behalf of a rather magnificent new artist!

Colin Lynch - October 28 2006

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