Although this review attended the first edition of New Millennium Guitar Publishing ten years ago I ‘ll offer it as a decade anniversary and in a new review update Alessio’s new compositions and activities.

Alessio Monti understands the noise factor of the guitar very well. When I say noise I mean percussion, backtones, different intonations-headstock pitches, preparations and other either hand or material type of modifications of the guitar. He's a color man.

He's also ambidextrous. He cross functions hands in too many ways to describe.

To say his music is pan-cultural is simplistic. He quotes The Beatles in an altered form, he sounds improvisory in the manner of whatever-his compositional palette contains many different streams of musical thought that combine to make a very distinctive music that is truly worthy of becoming known to many. Why haven't I heard about him until recently?

Mr. Monti starts his liner notes off with a sociological statement about the believed supremacy of western civilization and the recognition of this falsehood in the 60's. It's nice to know he's a hippy. Some of my best friends...

The first sentence has exactly 50 words. It is consequently the first paragraph. He goes on to establish himself as a sociologist/visionary in the succeeding paragraphs.

All of the pieces have lengthy text information that concern themselves with the East and the spiritual quest of a guitar player. They also tell of the profound influence the East has had on the musician.

Panjim is a collection of 12 pieces and the last Panjim , was commissioned by the Seicentonovecento Ensemble conducted by Ugo Maccari.

I want to stand here before you and say that is the only guitar album I would buy. Please consider that I NEVER buy a classical guitar album but they are given to me by friends.

There is a beautiful flow of material on Panjim. Set aside the wealth of technical invention and the challenge of dealing with dissonance for a moment . I think anyone listening to Panjim for the first time, regardless of their persuasions, should be able to notice that it is a work of art from the pacing standpoint.

The first piece,"The Forest of Gokarnath", establishes some of the language and array of techniques that Mr. Monti uses. Immediately we hear backtones, sympathetic bass strings that are folded or pulled off the neck and all manner of percussion, which is a feature of his style being that all manner of hitting different parts of the body with different parts of the "mallets" (fingers)is utilized.

The beginning pieces are the more spacious and "inside" than the succeeding. The second piece, "Il Raga Del Fuoco" and the fourth piece "La rose de sable" are familiar to us having a mixture of rock-heavy rock, flamenco and Indian influences. "Il Raga Del Fuoco" even modifies an old Beatles tune.

"Omaggio ad Alvaro Company" is in a more "western" casting and is a piece dedicated to his teacher who is also a guitarist composer.

"Aistesis" the heaviness continues but it takes a rhapsodic turn with a second theme that is very beautiful and counterpoints the first section. It is followed with what sounds like modal improvisation but returns to the rhapsodic theme.

"Tre Koan" is beautifully delicate and menacing. The beauty comes from a repeating line and a wandering second line. The second section is in a rhapsodic vein which leads to the third section that is more mechanistic. The sound of this piece is a good example of the guitar generating an idiosyncratic language.

"Tre Koan" is just the type of music that traditionalist of the guitar would like to play of the late 20th century. The techniques used are headstock pitches, right hand backtones and body percussion and are well within the reach of today's gifted players.

"Paesaggi Della Memoria" is very interesting in it's isolation of color. This is perhaps the most colorful of the colorful pieces on this CD. The combination of headstock pitches and harmonics are the essence of this piece. "Le Dimore Dei Sogni" has that post-Webern isolation of color in a non tonal setting. A certain non periocity is featured in this piece. It sets up that psychological time that is rare in guitar music.

"La Nube Di Oort" is a bag of tricks: headstock pitches with harmonics, string folding and other percussive effects,right hand tapping and portamento with a metal bar.

"Rituale" would make Hendrix take up the classical guitar. Remember the very beginning of "Foxy Lady"?

"I Corridoi Del Tempo" is a good example, again, of the type of music that todays gifted performers would like to look at.

"Panjim" is a very good setting for Alessio to show his wares. It is also a good model for those composers who are looking for a model for a smaller ensemble piece with guitar.

In general this CD must be looked at as an extremely fine example of how an instrument can generate a language. It is a natural consequence of the classical guitar in the 20th century.

The language is non tonal as a whole with serializations,nested tonalities, modality all clothed in something that has more in common with Scriabin than arch romantics.

Alessio's playing is first rate but you can't separate the composer from the performer so this is more than appending this first rateness to a Bach performance.

I recommend this CD to everyone from rock players who like to listen to hot classical guitar to the gifted performers who are on the lookout for challenging and meaningful music that expresses the feeling and technique of the late 20th century.

Nice to meet you, Alessio! Welcome everybody to the New Millennium.

Copyright 2009, new millennium Guitar Publishing Co., ALL RIGHTS RESERVED