... and you can take this at face value. No fancy funk excursions or heavy metal thunder. None of this "look here, I'm Mr. Fastfinger, I've no idea about the Blues, but as long as people believe it, I'm going to milk this cow dry" thing. No, friends and neighbours, this is Blues the way it should be played. No breaking of landspeedrecords on the guitar, just fine instrumental works. Larry Schmuki is some kind of legend in the Zurich Highlands. Talk about being a householdname! About everyone you're talking to up there goes "ah, Larry, of course we know him"! You try the same around where I live and people go "Larry who"?
I got to know his music via some friends who put me on to Trust, a band Larry had been playing with. Up until then, I had the idea that Blues wasn't even dying, it was simply nonexistent in this country. The Trust CDs are probably out of print. If you see one, buy it. Don't think twice! His current project (has been so for a few years now), is his Blues band. If I'm not mistaken, this here is the third release on CD (that's all there is in my collection). The Blues played here is electric, make no mistake. And it's not the laidback kind of Blues that makes your feet go sleepy. It's to the point and musically excellent excersised. Top craftmanship! Hard to compare it to any other living Blues player, I just can't think of a good example. Or rather, the ones that I can think of are equally unknown, so as not to be of much help.
There's a certain Swissness throughout the album. I can't point my finger at it. Is it the singing (good voice, no question about it)? There's not much of a foreign accent here, just maybe a tad to exact. Of the fourteen tracks, ten are originals and also for this, the album should have a chance to rotate in your player. The songwriting is top stuff and up there with the best. On earlier releases, the balance between covers and originals was more in favour of the first. There's some video footage available, just check the usual places. Their website is at www.larrysbluesband.ch, where you also can order their CDs.
Cheers
Devon
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