Ian Melrose - Swirling Sands

In 2011 Scottish guitarist/composer/arranger/producer Ian Melrose was invited by Albrecht Kurbjuhn and the “Mecklenburg inspiriert e.V.” to be an “artist-in-residence” in the lovely town of Kühlungsborn, a seaside resort on the Baltic sea coast in the north of Germany. It was a great oppurtunity to concentrate on making and composing music, and he wrote pieces inspired by the town, the sea and the area in general.

The result is an atmospheric, impressionistic masterpiece, reflecting once again Melrose’s inventive compositional and arrangement skills. He paints vivid aural pictures, and whether it be the swirling sands on the beach, the first light of dawn on the horizon, the palatable joys of a whisky-tasting seminar or the echoes of a bygone era as steam locomotive “Molli” chugs along, the listener is drawn in to this flood of images. His elegant virtuosity is never an end in itself, but serves the needs and moods of the pieces, and his ensemble arrangements add further spice to the experience.