Artist Spotlight: Steve ALLEN (Robert Pieculewicz)

I have a treat for fans of instrumental guitar rock today. Robert Pieculewicz, a guitarist from Poland, has recently made a couple of his albums available for free from Jamendo (where he is listed as Steve ALLEN (Robert Pieculewicz)). In case you are unfamiliar with the genre of instrumental guitar rock, I'll try to give a brief description of it here. It is literally an instrumental version of standard rock music; the verses, choruses, and bridges are all in the same places that they would be in a normal rock song, and all the instrumentation is the same, with one exception: lead guitar takes the place of the vocals. Often, this lead guitar is very melodic, leading to songs that can be sung or hummed along with.

Pieculewicz's music is very similar in style to that of Joe Satriani. If you like Joe Satriani, I would say that the chances that you will like Robert Pieculewicz are very high. And if you haven't heard any Joe Satriani, listening to Pieculewicz will give you a very good idea of what he sounds like. He has managed to emulate Satriani's style very closely, and yet still come up with material that is completely original and beautiful, especially in the case of songs like "Fly Free" and "Rain Ballad".

The albums that are available from Jamendo are Fly Free and Speed Limit, which were originally released in 1996 and 1998, respectively. A quick check of Pieculewicz's website shows that these are not the full versions of either album, but what they lack in quantity they more than make up for in quality. This man really knows his way around a fretboard, and seems equally at home playing blazing fast licks in songs like "Running with the Wind", and slower ballads like "Rain Ballad" and "Desert Rose".

I'm going to try something new with this post: Jamendo has the option to include a little album player widget so that an album can be listened to on any web page. At the bottom of this post are players for both of Robert Pieculewicz's albums. They should work if you have Flash installed; if for any reason they don't work, or if you really like or dislike this idea, please let me know by leaving a comment. I hope you enjoy this music, and I'll be back with more soon. Happy listening!

URLs:
http://www.jamendo.com/en/artist/Steve_ALLEN_(Robert_Pieculewicz)
http://www.pieculewicz.com/
http://www.jamendo.com/en/album/17541 (Speed Limit)
http://www.jamendo.com/en/album/17151 (Fly Free)