Thursday, November 09, 2006

Sitar Grunge Rock: Christopher Lee Freeman



I have been trying not to rave too much about my favorite musician, Michael Knott. Mainly because I know that he will have some new stuff out soon and there will be chances to go on and on about his musical genius later. So, I should take this chance to yabber on about other artists that I like.

Those that know me know that I have a huge interest in Middle Eastern and Indian music. What I really love is when someone mixes eastern and western music. Christopher Lee Freeman is one of those artists. Any one that has visited my MySpace page has probably had a chance to hear a Freeman song.

Mr. Freeman first came to my attention as the guitarist for a Christian Creed-clone band called G.S. Megaphone. I'm not much of a Creed fan, so I didn't pay much attention to them. One day, I read a random review somewhere about GS Megaphone going all world music on us, due to Chris's travels to India and purchase of a sitar. Luckily, I found that album on Ebay for a buck :) Gotta love Ebay. While I had to say that the world music influences on a few tracks were kind of there, it was still a Creed album. Actually, it was better than most Creed stuff, but still not my thing.

Anyway, GS Megaphone called it a day, and I started hearing rumors about Chris was doing solo albums of sitar music and loud guitars mixed together. My wife and I were already hooked on a Christian rock/worship Indian band called Aradhna that did the same sound, so I decided to check out Chris. I will have to blog about Aradhna soon, too. So, anyway, a few Google searches and two MySpace pages later and I was hooked.

Chris's music is really loud guitars and heavy Indian influenced sonic perfection on every track. The thing about most world music fusion is that it usually is mostly western music with a few ethnic beats thrown in, or eastern music with a slight jazz feel. Seldom is it a true mix of east and west. Chris's music is a really good blend of both. And all instrumental. So it just rocks.

So there.

Check out his music on his two MySpace pages:
http://www.myspace.com/christopherleefreeman
http://www.myspace.com/clfmusic

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