Lonny Ziblat - 2019 - Dream Hunting

(33:31; Lonny Ziblat)

Track list:
1. Healing 3:17
2. Outta Sight 2:23
3. Barby Q 2:31
4. Lost and Found 4:44
5. Another Day 5:06
6. Days of Peace 2:43
7. Lady Witch 3:04
8. Phony Baits 3:33
9. A Little Secret 2:45
10. Stuck 3:25

Line-up:
Lonny Ziblat - vocals, guitars, bass, percussion, keyboards, programming, mandolin, charango, glockenspiel, ukulele
with:
Fernando Fictivovich - bass
Sven Fictivesen - drums
Magdalena Golebiowska - vocals


Netherlands based artist Lonny Ziblat is perhaps best known in music circles as a member of progressive rock band Modest Midget, but I understand he has been and still is involved in a number of other music ventures too. Along the way he has also found the time to record and release a few solo albums using the Lonny Ziblat moniker (unlike his other excursions into the world of music that are released using the artist name Lionel Ziblat). "Dream Hunting" is the third and most recent of his solo albums, and was self-released in the summer of 2019.

It is a diverse collection of songs we get here, but the majority of the material here falls in under the singer/songwriter category. Several of which revolve around vocals and the acoustic guitar as the sole elements. Ziblat is an effective artist for such minimalist endeavours too, with excellent control over his voice (and the same is the case with guest vocalists Golebiowska) and with the skill to know when to make use of additional tones and more extravagant patterns from the acoustic guitar to create a landscape that manages to create and maintain tension and focus. With careful, flowing as well as subtly more dramatic excursions into this landscape all being present here.

We also get songs that may be a more or less accidental tip of the hat towards his past as a progressive rock band member. The manner in which the keyboards develop from a whimsical and minimalist motif on 'Another Day' for instance, or the subtly ominous sounding note reverberations and patterns used in 'Lady Witch' to add a subtle unnerving undercurrent to this more minimalist creation.

There are songs here that probably document an artist with interests outside of both the singer/songwriter field and the progressive rock universe too. The more jazz-oriented and groove-laden 'Outta Here' is a good example of that, and the Madness sounding whimsical keyboards nature of 'Barby Q' is another example of Ziblat being an artist that probably can explore musical creations of many and vastly different styles and orientations.

If you tend to enjoy singer/songwriter artists with a more minimalist and very well developed hand at how to make these landscapes interesting, and appreciate that an artist of this nature also allows his creative impulses to seek out and explore landscapes of at times a drastically different nature too, then this is a production that should be well worth a listen. A solid quality affair for those with a versatile and inclusive taste in music that mainly fall in under the pop/rock heading, and with a majority of compositions with a solid foundation in the singer/songwriter tradition.

Olav M. Björnsen, January 2025

Links:
https://www.lionelziblat.com/