(World, Ethnic) STEPHAN MICUS 1992 - To the evening child - APE (image + .cue), lossless

There are both instrumentals and vocal pieces here -- in the inimitable style and quality that Stephan Micus' listeners have come to respect and expect. I have been a fan since his first album in the mid-70s, and with each new release I stand in awe of the ability of this man to convey in music the very soul of our planet, of humankind.
As in his other recordings, he combines instruments from the far corners of the world -- instruments that have, most likely, never been recorded together before -- to subtle but powerful effect. The music transports the listener and uplifts the spirit. It is completely without hype, politics or pretention -- it is universal, uncluttered and uncompromising in its beauty. It is timeless.

Wistful, sweet-sad melodies, warm, glowing chords, shadows become sound; strands of light are tuned and strummed … a truly original voice, suffused with a mysticism that is equal parts Western and Eastern.
The music of Stephan Micus cannot be bracketed in a special category with jazz, Asian music or Indo-jazz. Multi-instrumentalist Micus - on bamboo flutes, rabab, sitar, zither and sho - is completely right: this music is not Japanese, not Indian, and not Bavarian … from the cultures which im-pressed him as a West European, he has created a high-standard eclectic music greater than the sum of its parts.
The interesting sounds of these unusual instruments contrast strongly with the thoughtless imitative monotony of the synthetic sounds which are delivered to our houses in such great quantity by the pop in-dustry. It becomes clear, however, that it is not possible to imitate everything. Micus himself does not imitate. He takes inspirations - from the Far East for example - and transforms them into his own quite European music.