On this recording, from 1985, multi-instrumentalist Stephan Micus takes his listeners on a journey guided mainly by his incredible playing on a guitar that he disgned, custom-built by master luthier Manuel Diaz of Granada, Spain. It is a unique instrument that allows the player to customize the string array to suit his mood and the piece to be performed.
On this outing, Micus fits it with 10 single-course strings for the first half of the album, the title track 'East of the night'. He accompanies his guitar on this piece with two groups of shakuhaci (the Japanese bamboo flute used by Zen monks in meditation), a pair and a group of four. The effect is simply beautiful - the guitar is used as a base for the gentle, soaring melodies carried by the shakuhachi, making the piece a transporting tribute to the dawn (as another reviewer astutely related the title)…