Surrender 2 Love: Best of 2
It's been more than a decade since Ottmar Liebert came on the national music scene with his debut album,Nouveau Flamenco. The German-born guitarist brought a hybrid approach to this passionate Spanish guitar style that made it more atmospheric and brought him one of the largest audiences for an instrumentalist. Each succeeding album has been a deeper exploration of this approach, expanding it into orchestral and ambient terrain. You can hear the guitarist stretching beyond convention on tracks like "Waiting 4 Stars 2 Fall," creating a more cinematic expanse with synthesizer pads and conga drums or doubling up guitars on "Shepherd's Nite Watch."Surrender 2 Loveis yet another culling of music from his early years with the Higher Octave label, and like most second "Best of" collections, it is, indeed, second-best. After all, he only recorded three albums for the label in the first place. ButSurrender 2 Loveis far from being Liebert's dregs, and even on a second pass, he stands six strings above most nouveau flamenco pretenders.--John Diliberto