Antonio Forcione, Touch Wood

love this album. love the general mood of this album yet there are individual characteristics of the various songs from instruments used to technicalities

Antonio Forcione continues his excellent discography with another flamboyant, world-inspired album of superbly executed originality. The cohesiveness of Forcione's influences grows on each album. This time we are treated to typical guitar pyrotechnics, (which sometimes lose their impact on studio recordings considering the possibility of multitracking and overdubs, but are integral to the music in the case of the title track) before the sweaty pulsating romance of Tarantella featuring the haughty whisps of Jenny Adejayan's cello. Next is the welcome return of Sabina Sciubba, last heard in collaboration with Forcione on Meet Me In London (see review), whose smokey vocals on the 60s-like ballad Mirror Mirror give it a sublimely innocent charm. Alhambra is Forciones painting in sound of the Moorish palace of the Nasrid dynasty to be found in Granada and is his strongest composition here. It also features on the special accompanying CDRom packaged in parallel with the album.

After this the Latino beats of rhumba and tango mainly predominate, including an excellent version of Astor Piazzolla's Tango Suite, and Forcione's swinging gypsy jazz cut For Vic. Some parts are as intensive as the first Guitar Trio (McLaughlin, de Lucia and DiMeola) collaborations on Passion Grace and Fire and others cool off to ballroom/tearoom temperature.

The band's mutuality is striking, lending a warm fluidity to the music; enhanced by the cello and the nylon-stringed instruments of Forcione and fellow guitarist Giorgio Serci. Prudent percussion from Cuban musician Adriano Pinto decorates the music in places. A highlight of the recent and ongoing tour is Forcione and Pinto's guitar and tamborine duet, which checks any preconceptions of the limits of this normally restricted percussion instrument. Another main contributing factor to the enjoyment of this album is the superb clarity and quality of the sound recording. Clean and crisp mixed with deep and resonating. This is proving a popular album, possibly because of the popularity of Latino music, but hopefully also because of the band's great playing of Forcione's great compositions.