Reviewed by Simon Eden

Ramblings or musings; it is difficult to know which, but like the Mona Lisa, wherever you are in the room the smile is directed personally to you. I guess that is what you get when you record an album with no preparation other than 62 years of guitar practice. For El McMeen, it was a way of passing the time waiting for the boiler repair man to call. For us, it is a collection of impromptu acoustic guitar tracks with highly complex finger picking. To put things in perspective, Mendelssohn inspired the final track whilst others are based on bagpipe melodies, or Irish jigs. In places, the musings are explanations of what inspired the basis of each track; alternatively some ramblings just comment on the weather today and the forecast for tomorrow in New Jersey. As informed by the first rambling, the album was recorded on 4th December 2009 at El's home, with him getting into the Christmas spirit as several of the medleys contain well known Christmas carols. Some classic worship tracks make an appearance such as "Amazing Grace", but because they were the inspiration as opposed to a rendition, you may not even notice them. This album will leave you with two things; very impressed with El's technical abilities, and best of all, very chilled out.

The opinions expressed in this article are not necessarily those held by Cross Rhythms. Any expressed views were accurate at the time of publishing but may or may not reflect the views of the individuals concerned at a later date.

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