Ottmar Liebert’s incredible global success on a musical level often seems like a simple outgrowth of his cultural background and powerful wanderlust in his formative years. Born in Cologne, Germany to Chinese-German father and Hungarian mother, he began playing guitar at 11, and traveled extensively through Europe and Asia intent on fully absorbing each musical tradition he encountered. After pursuing his Rock and Roll dreams first in his native Germany and then in Boston, he abandoned the frustrations of the East coast and settled in Santa Fe, New Mexico.
By 1989, he had founded the first incarnation of his new band Luna Negra. Nouveau Flamenco began life as a self-produced local release called Marita: Shadows and Storms, copies of which local Indian artist Frank Howell distributed in his art galleries. When the record found its way to radio stations and began generating a buzz among programmers and an unprecedented response among listeners, Higher Octave Music picked it up and released a fully remastered version.
“I was honestly happy playing this music in hotels and restaurants in Santa Fe, and going in one year from doing that to opening for Miles Davis was a pretty intense jump,” he recalls. “Most shocking for me was to realize how many different people from so many diverse cultures embraced it. I still get letters from fans in Europe, South-America, Australia, and Asia...it’s been a really gratifying experience. I’ve had the opportunity to play in a wide variety of cultural settings with musicians from around the world, and that has been a great experience, too.”
Liebert has since become one of the most successful instrumental artists of the past decade, thrilling audiences throughout the world and releasing a catalog of classic recordings, including the remix collection Euphoria (1995), the live album Viva! (1995), the double CD Opium (1996) and the classical-oriented orchestral album Leaning into the Night (1997). He wrapped up his decade with Epic with 2001’s Little Wing and went back to Higher Octave Music, releasing a lush album of lullabies called In the Arms of Love in 2002 and an album with Luna Negra XL called The Santa Fe Sessions (2003).
La Semana (2004) was the first all-new band album in five years, followed by Winter Rose (2005), which featured original pieces, classical music and christmas songs. In 2006 Liebert's record label SSRI released One Guitar, his first solo guitar recording, which received Liebert's fourth nomination for a Grammy. His newest releases are Up Close (2008), which is a binaural dummy head surround sound recording, and The Scent of Light (2008) a labor of five years.
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There is a change in the weather and sound for Ottmar Liebert’s release entitled ‘Dune.’ Magic men are said to be drawn to the desert sands. Sometimes they come as sculptors like Christo that put up strange and beautiful environments that inspire. Sometimes they come as Native American medicine men or old Japanese Kyoto masters to meditate and postulate. And sometimes, just plain and simple great artists disguised as guitar players. Liebert’s new release “Dune” sits firmly in the crosshairs of it all. Random beauty – airy, rhythmic and sometimes funky; sounds to put you inside of full and empty spaces, at the same time. Ottmar is always exceptionally brilliant and mysterious, but....
Ottmar has been nominated for 5 Grammy’s and has multiple Gold and Platinum records (www.ottmarliebert.com/biography/awards.php). He has sold millions of records across the globe. This skilled practitioner of contemporary flamenco guitar is always a surprise. He plays with lots of textures in this set – contrasting traditional and electric instruments and adding accordion, Memphis bass lines, trumpets and a drum machine – in addition to lots of percussion. This release features Ottmar on acoustic and electric guitars; Jon Gagan on acoustic upright bass, electric bass guitars, and keyboards, including clavinet; Char Rothschild on accordion; Robby Rothschild on percussion (Chris Steele on Track 14).
Ottmar adds “I’m following the idea of contrasting traditional and electric instruments like we did on the ‘Opium’ release. There are also beautiful treatments and sound design by Andrew Gaskins on three tracks. For the opening track, ‘Fallin In’ (to a dream), for example, I sent Andrew single notes and chords I played on my guitar, which he then stretched and manipulated. (See Ottmar’s Diary on this project at http://www.ottmarliebert.com/diary/)
Ottmar plays with an Arabic scale he found on the internet on track #3 ‘Horse’, switches between rumba and a 6/8 beat on ‘Shadow’, records a beautiful piece in 5/4, track #11 ‘Five Clouds, Lenticular’, and trades melodies with the accordion on track 9, ‘Smoke’ (while Jon plays three basses and a clavinet) - the influences on this project cover the globe, and take you there.
Ottmar: "I wanted to play guitar melodies that sounded 'sung'. For some reason I kept thinking about old jazz and pop crooners. So I sang almost every melody first and then figured out how to play it on guitar."
15 tracks... 13 really, as the first and the last are brief mood locators, in-and-out within the mysterious world of night and shadow. Flamenco noir, a dreamscape... Track 02, ‘Shadow’, Track 03, ‘Horse’, Tracks 04 and 05, ‘Bridge 1 and 2’, and so on as the narrative declares its nocturnal mystery. A horse, a desert, a moon... swirling sand and spiraling smoke and there it is, "the place of power", the Dune.
That’s the thing about Ottmar – as you listen, the environment seems to change and the music projects you into a different space. The dreamscape starts and creates room for your own ‘Dune’ encounter.
show less
By 1989, he had founded the first incarnation of his new band Luna Negra. Nouveau Flamenco began life as a self-produced local release called Marita: Shadows and Storms, copies of which local Indian artist Frank Howell distributed in his art galleries. When the record found its way to radio stations and began generating a buzz among programmers and an unprecedented response among listeners, Higher Octave Music picked it up and released a fully remastered version.
“I was honestly happy playing this music in hotels and restaurants in Santa Fe, and going in one year from doing that to opening for Miles Davis was a pretty intense jump,” he recalls. “Most shocking for me was to realize how many different people from so many diverse cultures embraced it. I still get letters from fans in Europe, South-America, Australia, and Asia...it’s been a really gratifying experience. I’ve had the opportunity to play in a wide variety of cultural settings with musicians from around the world, and that has been a great experience, too.”
Liebert has since become one of the most successful instrumental artists of the past decade, thrilling audiences throughout the world and releasing a catalog of classic recordings, including the remix collection Euphoria (1995), the live album Viva! (1995), the double CD Opium (1996) and the classical-oriented orchestral album Leaning into the Night (1997). He wrapped up his decade with Epic with 2001’s Little Wing and went back to Higher Octave Music, releasing a lush album of lullabies called In the Arms of Love in 2002 and an album with Luna Negra XL called The Santa Fe Sessions (2003).
La Semana (2004) was the first all-new band album in five years, followed by Winter Rose (2005), which featured original pieces, classical music and christmas songs. In 2006 Liebert's record label SSRI released One Guitar, his first solo guitar recording, which received Liebert's fourth nomination for a Grammy. His newest releases are Up Close (2008), which is a binaural dummy head surround sound recording, and The Scent of Light (2008) a labor of five years.
------
There is a change in the weather and sound for Ottmar Liebert’s release entitled ‘Dune.’ Magic men are said to be drawn to the desert sands. Sometimes they come as sculptors like Christo that put up strange and beautiful environments that inspire. Sometimes they come as Native American medicine men or old Japanese Kyoto masters to meditate and postulate. And sometimes, just plain and simple great artists disguised as guitar players. Liebert’s new release “Dune” sits firmly in the crosshairs of it all. Random beauty – airy, rhythmic and sometimes funky; sounds to put you inside of full and empty spaces, at the same time. Ottmar is always exceptionally brilliant and mysterious, but....
Ottmar has been nominated for 5 Grammy’s and has multiple Gold and Platinum records (www.ottmarliebert.com/biography/awards.php). He has sold millions of records across the globe. This skilled practitioner of contemporary flamenco guitar is always a surprise. He plays with lots of textures in this set – contrasting traditional and electric instruments and adding accordion, Memphis bass lines, trumpets and a drum machine – in addition to lots of percussion. This release features Ottmar on acoustic and electric guitars; Jon Gagan on acoustic upright bass, electric bass guitars, and keyboards, including clavinet; Char Rothschild on accordion; Robby Rothschild on percussion (Chris Steele on Track 14).
Ottmar adds “I’m following the idea of contrasting traditional and electric instruments like we did on the ‘Opium’ release. There are also beautiful treatments and sound design by Andrew Gaskins on three tracks. For the opening track, ‘Fallin In’ (to a dream), for example, I sent Andrew single notes and chords I played on my guitar, which he then stretched and manipulated. (See Ottmar’s Diary on this project at http://www.ottmarliebert.com/diary/)
Ottmar plays with an Arabic scale he found on the internet on track #3 ‘Horse’, switches between rumba and a 6/8 beat on ‘Shadow’, records a beautiful piece in 5/4, track #11 ‘Five Clouds, Lenticular’, and trades melodies with the accordion on track 9, ‘Smoke’ (while Jon plays three basses and a clavinet) - the influences on this project cover the globe, and take you there.
Ottmar: "I wanted to play guitar melodies that sounded 'sung'. For some reason I kept thinking about old jazz and pop crooners. So I sang almost every melody first and then figured out how to play it on guitar."
15 tracks... 13 really, as the first and the last are brief mood locators, in-and-out within the mysterious world of night and shadow. Flamenco noir, a dreamscape... Track 02, ‘Shadow’, Track 03, ‘Horse’, Tracks 04 and 05, ‘Bridge 1 and 2’, and so on as the narrative declares its nocturnal mystery. A horse, a desert, a moon... swirling sand and spiraling smoke and there it is, "the place of power", the Dune.
That’s the thing about Ottmar – as you listen, the environment seems to change and the music projects you into a different space. The dreamscape starts and creates room for your own ‘Dune’ encounter.
Ottmar Liebert’s incredible global success on a musical level often seems like a simple outgrowth of his cultural background and powerful wanderlust in his formative years. Born in Cologne, Germany to Chinese-German father and Hungarian mother, he began playing guitar at 11, and traveled extensively through Europe and Asia intent on fully absorbing each musical tradition he encountered. After pursuing his Rock and Roll dreams first in his native Germany and then in Boston, he abandoned the frustrations of the East coast and settled in Santa Fe, New Mexico.
By 1989, he had founded the first incarnation of his new band Luna Negra. Nouveau Flamenco began life as a self-produced local release called Marita: Shadows and Storms, copies of which local Indian artist Frank Howell distributed in his art galleries. When the record found its way to radio stations and began generating a buzz among programmers and an unprecedented response among listeners, Higher Octave Music picked it up and released a fully remastered version.
“I was honestly happy playing this music in hotels and restaurants in Santa Fe, and going in one year from doing that to opening for Miles Davis was a pretty intense jump,” he recalls. “Most shocking for me was to realize how many different people from so many diverse cultures embraced it. I still get letters from fans in Europe, South-America, Australia, and Asia...it’s been a really gratifying experience. I’ve had the opportunity to play in a wide variety of cultural settings with musicians from around the world, and that has been a great experience, too.”
Liebert has since become one of the most successful instrumental artists of the past decade, thrilling audiences throughout the world and releasing a catalog of classic recordings, including the remix collection Euphoria (1995), the live album Viva! (1995), the double CD Opium (1996) and the classical-oriented orchestral album Leaning into the Night (1997). He wrapped up his decade with Epic with 2001’s Little Wing and went back to Higher Octave Music, releasing a lush album of lullabies called In the Arms of Love in 2002 and an album with Luna Negra XL called The Santa Fe Sessions (2003).
La Semana (2004) was the first all-new band album in five years, followed by Winter Rose (2005), which featured original pieces, classical music and christmas songs. In 2006 Liebert's record label SSRI released One Guitar, his first solo guitar recording, which received Liebert's fourth nomination for a Grammy. His newest releases are Up Close (2008), which is a binaural dummy head surround sound recording, and The Scent of Light (2008) a labor of five years.
------
There is a change in the weather and sound for Ottmar Liebert’s release entitled ‘Dune.’ Magic men are said to be drawn to the desert sands. Sometimes they come as sculptors like Christo that put up strange and beautiful environments that inspire. Sometimes they come as Native American medicine men or old Japanese Kyoto masters to meditate and postulate. And sometimes, just plain and simple great artists disguised as guitar players. Liebert’s new release “Dune” sits firmly in the crosshairs of it all. Random beauty – airy, rhythmic and sometimes funky; sounds to put you inside of full and empty spaces, at the same time. Ottmar is always exceptionally brilliant and mysterious, but....
Ottmar has been nominated for 5 Grammy’s and has multiple Gold and Platinum records (www.ottmarliebert.com/biography/awards.php). He has sold millions of records across the globe. This skilled practitioner of contemporary flamenco guitar is always a surprise. He plays with lots of textures in this set – contrasting traditional and electric instruments and adding accordion, Memphis bass lines, trumpets and a drum machine – in addition to lots of percussion. This release features Ottmar on acoustic and electric guitars; Jon Gagan on acoustic upright bass, electric bass guitars, and keyboards, including clavinet; Char Rothschild on accordion; Robby Rothschild on percussion (Chris Steele on Track 14).
Ottmar adds “I’m following the idea of contrasting traditional and electric instruments like we did on the ‘Opium’ release. There are also beautiful treatments and sound design by Andrew Gaskins on three tracks. For the opening track, ‘Fallin In’ (to a dream), for example, I sent Andrew single notes and chords I played on my guitar, which he then stretched and manipulated. (See Ottmar’s Diary on this project at http://www.ottmarliebert.com/diary/)
Ottmar plays with an Arabic scale he found on the internet on track #3 ‘Horse’, switches between rumba and a 6/8 beat on ‘Shadow’, records a beautiful piece in 5/4, track #11 ‘Five Clouds, Lenticular’, and trades melodies with the accordion on track 9, ‘Smoke’ (while Jon plays three basses and a clavinet) - the influences on this project cover the globe, and take you there.
Ottmar: "I wanted to play guitar melodies that sounded 'sung'. For some reason I kept thinking about old jazz and pop crooners. So I sang almost every melody first and then figured out how to play it on guitar."
15 tracks... 13 really, as the first and the last are brief mood locators, in-and-out within the mysterious world of night and shadow. Flamenco noir, a dreamscape... Track 02, ‘Shadow’, Track 03, ‘Horse’, Tracks 04 and 05, ‘Bridge 1 and 2’, and so on as the narrative declares its nocturnal mystery. A horse, a desert, a moon... swirling sand and spiraling smoke and there it is, "the place of power", the Dune.
That’s the thing about Ottmar – as you listen, the environment seems to change and the music projects you into a different space. The dreamscape starts and creates room for your own ‘Dune’ encounter.
read more
By 1989, he had founded the first incarnation of his new band Luna Negra. Nouveau Flamenco began life as a self-produced local release called Marita: Shadows and Storms, copies of which local Indian artist Frank Howell distributed in his art galleries. When the record found its way to radio stations and began generating a buzz among programmers and an unprecedented response among listeners, Higher Octave Music picked it up and released a fully remastered version.
“I was honestly happy playing this music in hotels and restaurants in Santa Fe, and going in one year from doing that to opening for Miles Davis was a pretty intense jump,” he recalls. “Most shocking for me was to realize how many different people from so many diverse cultures embraced it. I still get letters from fans in Europe, South-America, Australia, and Asia...it’s been a really gratifying experience. I’ve had the opportunity to play in a wide variety of cultural settings with musicians from around the world, and that has been a great experience, too.”
Liebert has since become one of the most successful instrumental artists of the past decade, thrilling audiences throughout the world and releasing a catalog of classic recordings, including the remix collection Euphoria (1995), the live album Viva! (1995), the double CD Opium (1996) and the classical-oriented orchestral album Leaning into the Night (1997). He wrapped up his decade with Epic with 2001’s Little Wing and went back to Higher Octave Music, releasing a lush album of lullabies called In the Arms of Love in 2002 and an album with Luna Negra XL called The Santa Fe Sessions (2003).
La Semana (2004) was the first all-new band album in five years, followed by Winter Rose (2005), which featured original pieces, classical music and christmas songs. In 2006 Liebert's record label SSRI released One Guitar, his first solo guitar recording, which received Liebert's fourth nomination for a Grammy. His newest releases are Up Close (2008), which is a binaural dummy head surround sound recording, and The Scent of Light (2008) a labor of five years.
------
There is a change in the weather and sound for Ottmar Liebert’s release entitled ‘Dune.’ Magic men are said to be drawn to the desert sands. Sometimes they come as sculptors like Christo that put up strange and beautiful environments that inspire. Sometimes they come as Native American medicine men or old Japanese Kyoto masters to meditate and postulate. And sometimes, just plain and simple great artists disguised as guitar players. Liebert’s new release “Dune” sits firmly in the crosshairs of it all. Random beauty – airy, rhythmic and sometimes funky; sounds to put you inside of full and empty spaces, at the same time. Ottmar is always exceptionally brilliant and mysterious, but....
Ottmar has been nominated for 5 Grammy’s and has multiple Gold and Platinum records (www.ottmarliebert.com/biography/awards.php). He has sold millions of records across the globe. This skilled practitioner of contemporary flamenco guitar is always a surprise. He plays with lots of textures in this set – contrasting traditional and electric instruments and adding accordion, Memphis bass lines, trumpets and a drum machine – in addition to lots of percussion. This release features Ottmar on acoustic and electric guitars; Jon Gagan on acoustic upright bass, electric bass guitars, and keyboards, including clavinet; Char Rothschild on accordion; Robby Rothschild on percussion (Chris Steele on Track 14).
Ottmar adds “I’m following the idea of contrasting traditional and electric instruments like we did on the ‘Opium’ release. There are also beautiful treatments and sound design by Andrew Gaskins on three tracks. For the opening track, ‘Fallin In’ (to a dream), for example, I sent Andrew single notes and chords I played on my guitar, which he then stretched and manipulated. (See Ottmar’s Diary on this project at http://www.ottmarliebert.com/diary/)
Ottmar plays with an Arabic scale he found on the internet on track #3 ‘Horse’, switches between rumba and a 6/8 beat on ‘Shadow’, records a beautiful piece in 5/4, track #11 ‘Five Clouds, Lenticular’, and trades melodies with the accordion on track 9, ‘Smoke’ (while Jon plays three basses and a clavinet) - the influences on this project cover the globe, and take you there.
Ottmar: "I wanted to play guitar melodies that sounded 'sung'. For some reason I kept thinking about old jazz and pop crooners. So I sang almost every melody first and then figured out how to play it on guitar."
15 tracks... 13 really, as the first and the last are brief mood locators, in-and-out within the mysterious world of night and shadow. Flamenco noir, a dreamscape... Track 02, ‘Shadow’, Track 03, ‘Horse’, Tracks 04 and 05, ‘Bridge 1 and 2’, and so on as the narrative declares its nocturnal mystery. A horse, a desert, a moon... swirling sand and spiraling smoke and there it is, "the place of power", the Dune.
That’s the thing about Ottmar – as you listen, the environment seems to change and the music projects you into a different space. The dreamscape starts and creates room for your own ‘Dune’ encounter.
show less
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