Since releasing her debut album, a dual project with Tim Urbanus titled Leap of Faith in 2015, 26 year old acoustic guitarist and composer Karlijn Lengendijk has been a true global phenomenon, sharing stages with guitar masters Tommy Emmanuel and Peter Finger, touring throughout Europe, China, Japan and India and winning numerous international competitions, starting with the SAI Acoustic Guitar Competition in the Czech Republic.
It’s fascinating to note that in the midst of her early acclaim (2018), between graduating from the Conservatory in Utrecht (NL) and earning her Master of Music at the Hochschule für Musik in Dresden, she co-founded MusiSHEeans – a community to support and empower female musicians who should be heard for their music and not be judged on their looks or sex appeal.
While several of her best known albums feature her in tandem with other renowned fingerstylists, Lengendijk’s solo track “The Golden Hour” is the perfect showcase for her intricate and exquisite playing without any accompaniment. Penned by the guitarist, the piece is all at once stark, ambient and deeply emotional, beginning with a hypnotic repeated motif of a higher scale before evolving into a soulful, expression artfully pairing a lower toned melody and a harmony line laden with resonant high notes.
Like life itself both in the pandemic era and other times, it’s always about the contrast between and coming together of darkness and light. As the thoughtful, truly meditative tune evolves, Lengendijk draws us in further with her sweet fusion of elegant strum and percussive pluck and allowing us to hear the earthiness of those raw wood scrapes.
“The Golden Hour” is one of six individually released tracks that are part of myndstream November Flight collection – the second in a series of seasonal collections of tracks handpicked by the label’s Head of A&R and General Manager (and veteran two time Emmy winning artist) Michael Whalen. The first, released in August 2021, was titled Summer Flight.
Comments