{"id":146852,"date":"2025-01-24T06:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-01-24T14:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/acousticguitar.com\/?p=146852"},"modified":"2025-01-21T14:43:49","modified_gmt":"2025-01-21T22:43:49","slug":"review-dylan-fowlers-ebb-flow-is-an-eclectic-masterpiece","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/acousticguitar.com\/review-dylan-fowlers-ebb-flow-is-an-eclectic-masterpiece\/","title":{"rendered":"Review: Dylan Fowler\u2019s\u00a0\u2018Ebb &amp; Flow\u2019\u00a0Is an Eclectic Masterpiece"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Fingerstyle guitarist Dylan Fowler straddles multiple worlds, collaborating closely with musicians from Finland, India, Turkey, and across the Celtic diaspora. <a href=\"https:\/\/amzn.to\/40EWdOf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">On this solo album<\/a>, his first in more than a decade, he brings it all back home, finding his inspiration in American jazz (Keith Jarrett\u2019s \u201cMy Song\u201d), Brazilian pop (\u201cJoy\u201d), Bulgarian folk (\u201cErghen Diado\u201d), and Indian classical (\u201cSix Thaal\u201d) while remaining close to his folk-trad roots in Wales, where he\u2019s lived most of his life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><a href=\"https:\/\/amzn.to\/40EWdOf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\" noreferrer noopener\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"899\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/acousticguitar.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/Dylan-Fowler-Ebb-and-Flow-cover.jpg?resize=1024%2C899&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"Dylan-Fowler-Ebb-and-Flow-cover\" class=\"wp-image-146856\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/acousticguitar.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/Dylan-Fowler-Ebb-and-Flow-cover.jpg?resize=1024%2C899&amp;ssl=1 1024w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/acousticguitar.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/Dylan-Fowler-Ebb-and-Flow-cover.jpg?resize=500%2C439&amp;ssl=1 500w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/acousticguitar.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/Dylan-Fowler-Ebb-and-Flow-cover.jpg?resize=768%2C675&amp;ssl=1 768w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/acousticguitar.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/Dylan-Fowler-Ebb-and-Flow-cover.jpg?resize=300%2C264&amp;ssl=1 300w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/acousticguitar.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/Dylan-Fowler-Ebb-and-Flow-cover.jpg?w=1200&amp;ssl=1 1200w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>It\u2019s a delicate balance, but no matter how far he reaches, Fowler keeps coming back to the pastoral sweetness of the Welsh countryside. For the John Coltrane ballad \u201cNaima,\u201d Fowler focuses on the brightest colors and the gentlest chords, letting the notes dance across the landscape and pausing only for an occasional reverie. For \u201cErgen Deda,\u201d a powerhouse originally recorded by the Bulgarian State Television Female Vocal Choir, Fowler opens with the quietest, narrowest of drones before delicately widening his palette, turning the piece into a surprisingly intimate meditation on love, aging, and village life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-embed-handler wp-block-embed-embed-handler wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe title=\"Erghen Diado - P. Liondev Arranged by Dylan Fowler\" width=\"1290\" height=\"726\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/qOvhes8kjPU?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Closer to the tradition, he draws a deep well of mournfulness from the Scots \u201cBlack Is the Colour,\u201d contrasts the promise and disappointment of romance in a stunning version of the Beatles\u2019 \u201cNorwegian Wood,\u201d and explores the region with two new compositions. In \u201cRhigos,\u201d he captures the view atop a nearby mountain, and in \u201cLlyn y Fan,\u201d he follows the movement of butterflies across a field, gently alighting before taking flight again. That\u2019s Fowler at his most strikingly original\u2014both worldly and Welsh\u2014mixing equal parts jazz and folk to trace the flow of nature in beautifully complex, richly warm meditations on the large and small worlds around him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>A gem.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Welsh guitarist\u2019s new album weaves influences from jazz, folk, and global traditions into meditative and richly textured music.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":146854,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"The Welsh guitarist\u2019s new album weaves influences from jazz, folk, and global traditions into meditative and richly textured music.","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[885],"tags":[],"ppma_author":[1568],"class_list":["post-146852","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-album-reviews"],"blocksy_meta":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/acousticguitar.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/dylan-fowler.jpg?fit=1200%2C806&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"authors":[{"term_id":1568,"user_id":0,"is_guest":1,"slug":"kenny-berkowitz","display_name":"Kenny Berkowitz","avatar_url":{"url":"https:\/\/acousticguitar.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/Kenny-Berkowitz-Photo_web.jpg","url2x":"https:\/\/acousticguitar.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/Kenny-Berkowitz-Photo_web.jpg"},"author_category":"","user_url":"","last_name":"","first_name":"","job_title":"","description":""}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/acousticguitar.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/146852","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/acousticguitar.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/acousticguitar.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/acousticguitar.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/acousticguitar.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=146852"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/acousticguitar.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/146852\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":147056,"href":"https:\/\/acousticguitar.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/146852\/revisions\/147056"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/acousticguitar.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/146854"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/acousticguitar.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=146852"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/acousticguitar.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=146852"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/acousticguitar.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=146852"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/acousticguitar.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ppma_author?post=146852"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}