AMBIENT MONKEYS

EPHERMERAL BEING

Sonic Canvas Records

Denny Jiosa, guitar; Michael Moryc, RAV Vast tongue drum.

This music makes me want to jump into my car and ride. It’s exciting, exotic and energetic. Here is duo music, created in part by the RAV Vast tongue drum, played by Michael Moryc. The first thing I had to do was investigate this newly popular drum instrument.

In 2013, after months of trial and error, a Russian engineer named Remyannikov Andrey Vladimirovich invented this instrument that Michael Moryc is playing. RAV stands for the inventor’s initials. ‘Vast’ replaced the word ‘drum’ to signify the instrument’s deep, long, overwhelming ‘sustain’ ability.

This unusual instrument looks somewhat like Handpans, but it’s pressed smooth and shiny.  It is as easy to play as a kitchen table, using the touch of your fingers to make rhythm patterns and create soundscapes. There is a rich, warm, range of harmonics on each tongue of this percussive device.  Each tongue can emit seven clean and balanced overtones, creating a choir effect. Today, the instruments can have an 18-scale variation between them and the new sound models in development.

It takes 13 people and 7 days to make one RAV, because it’s hand-crafted.

So, Nashville based Ambient Monkeys is a duo made up of two studio engineers and music producers. They have incorporated the RAV Vast Tongue Drum into their music. Both men are multi-talented musicians.

Michael Moryc knows every aspect of the music industry.  He’s been a singer, songwriter, guitarist, jazz promoter and producer, as well as an indie label music executive.  Denny Jiosa has been compared by JAZZIZ magazine to Eric Clapton, if Clapton played jazz. Denny’s a creative and brilliant guitarist, best known for his six smooth jazz projects.  Every one of those projects made it to the top 5 positions on the smooth jazz Billboard charts. The song “Wounded Warriors” made it to Number One on the UK single charts.

Opening with their original composition, “Tail of the Dragon” the duo sounds like a full band. This quickly becomes one of my favorites on their “Ephemeral Being” album.  It displays rhythms and melody, mixed smoothly together with Jiosa’s bluesy guitar melody, slipping like a needle through the fabric of their song. Quite frankly, this production makes me feel happy and whimsical.

Since I’m originally from Michigan, I was eager to hear how “Rumours of Kalamazoo” sounded.  It’s a laid-back ballad, with the melodic RAV Vast Tongue Drum sounding like an instrument with lots of reverb on it.  Moryc lays down the complete rhythm track for Jiosa to play his guitar over, spreading his solo atop the track, a blanket of guitar beauty.  On their “Nighthawk” tune, it has a more funk feel with an acid rock groove.

Michael Moryc is a USA veteran.  I thank him for serving our country.  While overseas, Moryc was exposed to the deadly Agent Orange.  One of the many side effects of that exposure is nerve damage.  It manifested in Michael’s hands, destroying his ability to play guitar. The RAV Vast Tongue Drum allows Moryc to continue to make music and express himself. The unique instrument has the ability to sound like a vibraphone, a percussion instrument, a drum, a gong, just a multitude of musical instruments that Michael Moryc can play with his wounded fingers.

This album is their 3^rd release in three years. It offers the listener a variety of adult contemporary music, blended with blues, (Like on their tune “The Cat’s Meow”).  Denny sounds very much like Wes Montgomery, as Michael Moryc makes his RAV Vast Tongue Drum sound like an orchestra. Impressive!

This duo blends smooth jazz with easy listening melodies and grooves that challenge being labeled.  For example, “Out at Night” unfolds like fog over the ocean, thick and bluesy.

Their music is lush and infectious.  It wraps around you like the arms of love, holding you prisoner to their unique sound and presentation.  Then comes “Not Chaos” that starts out with a percussive drive. I think this is more representative of Indie music.

Michael Moryc and Denny Jiosa sound like no other duo I have ever heard. This is creative music that will entertain for hours, always unique, without ever sounding repetitious or familiar.

Reviewed by Dee Dee McNeil

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