Watching the Sky
Matt Sellick
Independent (mattsellick.com)
Read the Review
The Thunder Bay flamenco guitarist and composer Matt Sellick, now Toronto-based, has spent much of the past decade orchestrating many of his flamenco guitar pieces and performing them with the Thunder Bay Symphony Orchestra, conducted here by Evan Mitchell on the resulting album Watching the Sky (Independent mattsellick.com).
Five of these pieces in their original form were included on Sellick’s 2014 CD After Rain, reviewed here in February 2015, and despite this being an intriguing and well-crafted project it’s difficult to feel that the orchestrations have enriched and enhanced the compositions; rather, they seem to detract from the original intimacy and impact and too often reduce the guitar to a rhythm accompaniment role. The guitar’s crispness – and After Rain had real punch – also tends to get softened in the recording balance.
The result is more of a Latin album than a flamenco album revisited, with occasional shades of José Feliciano – not a bad thing by any means. As such it has its attraction and its merits, but if you really want to know just how good a composer and guitarist Matt Sellick is then revisit After Rain.
