on wings

"Melody" is the first of 14 tracks – an impressively simple name for a sequence of notes instead of chords, just notes, falling slowly like drops, a sequence upon which the interplay with itself begins,  beguiling in its high-end harmonic effect. Synergetic processes become pure impressionism, purer than ever heard before on the guitar. If Debussy was alive and played the guitar, this is exactly how it would sound. 
"Morning Call" is similar and yet quite different, more rhythmized, with an almost jazz-like phrasing, and then in the title song, loops kick in like giant blossoms of sound, blooming hugely, one after another. With this music, it’s really hard not to fall into the Buddhist „wu wei “ - the cathartic „non-doing“ or „non-action“, something that we Occidentals just don’t comprehend. It has something trance-like about it, something of trance, dream, slack, tranquility. And then comes the last track „The Plain Sea“, which is much more difficult to be „translated“ for western minds than a stormy, furious, revengeful, threatening, destroying, or devouring sea. It lies peacefully before this musicus, and there is an inkling of what is meant by satori, that deep peace, inner balance and serenity that we hardly know on this strange side of the world: the middle, chung.

Far above the sea hovers a flock of birds, just drifting along and listening to a music that only birds can hear. Axel makes this magical music of the vast heavens audible to us because he is a skald, a Norse bard of olden days. He can understand the birds and the heavens, and he bestows his art upon us.

“on wings” is in the TopTen auf echoes

Alexander Schmitz, GER, AGAS

Folkmagazin, GER;5/2009

Axel Schultheiss has developed his own world…fascinating soundscapes…artistic and fragile textures, which are carefully and artfully extended with clouds of sound.
His dramaturgically and carefully constructed songs are very evocative and go far beyond the nature metaphor, which the cover and the song-title evokes. There are sounds reminding of  pedal-steel-guitar sounds sighing in the background and which change the essentially peaceful moods of the music into a disturbing presentiment of some vague irritation.
Schultheiss’ virtuosity is never an end to itself but a precondition for his music which sometimes has trancelike qualities.

Beautiful, mostly flowing and quiet music which also holds many exciting turns.
A master of atmospheric moods – music that crosses borders. Meanwhile he is one of the most notable guitarists in Europe. Silent music with sometimes trancelike grooves fform something like a network of crossing lines from which musical crossroads develop letting melodic and rhythmic figures break through. This is a virtuoso and sympathetic way of playing, full of surprises and nevertheless embodied in a silent energy – both emotionally and technically very experienced.

Rolf Thomas,
Jazzthetik, GER, 12/2009

Michael Seyfert,
RBB Kulturradio,GE,12.11.2009

Axel Schultheiss is without any doubt one of the most talented guitarists – as recently written down by the the Salzburger Nachrichten (Austria). But more than that he is a storyteller full of imagination who is always able to turn his little stories into musical jewels. In this way a mixture of snugging ballads, thoughtful rhythms relaxed grooves and economically picked guitar emerges. An album full of brilliant power, refreshing charm and sympathetic harmonies.

Ute Bahn,
InMusic, GER, Dec 2009/Jan 2010,

Cinemascope-like sounds, soundscapes full of warmth, dense layers of guitars, loops – here stringed instruments seem like a feather, drawing an internal picture with fine lines.

Folker, GER, 06/2009

...hypnotic soundscapes...an organic flow... The title track finds the music soaring in aural heights with an almost trance-like rhythm. Find yourself curled up on the couch on a gray afternoon? "On Wings" may be just the companion for that place.

Kirk Albrecht,
minor7th, USA, 01/02 2010

The guitar is one of the most popular instruments of our times; the acoustic steelstring guitar is not to expected to produce new and unheard sounds. But this is what Axel Schultheiss managed to do. This German musician succeeds in producing spheric soundscapes of glittering vastness and all of a sudden the title of the CD and its music are one: on wings – for lifting up and dreaming.

Martin Frischknecht,
Spuren, CH, Winter 2009/2010

The title speaks for itself. Axel Schultheiss floats through fourteen original compositions in hitherto unknown spheres that feel familiar at the same time. While withdrawing the listener from reality and putting him in hypnotic trance he has left stylistic boarders. …The emerging silence and harmony evokes Asian Buddhist approaches and it’s is not later than after the title-track as well as the closing “The Plain Sea” when the listener leaves like being “on wings” – a really pleasant process.

Ralf Bauer,
Akustikgitarre, GER, 01/2010

Soundbeispiele gibt es bei ozella music.