Alan Horvath | Music Review by Carrie Munsell

The Carrie Munsel Song Review | June 1999
Naked Moon

Alan Horvath has taken the folk and acoustic rock genre' and successfully married it with avant garde. Naked Moon is an incredibly well performed song. I love the open tunings and the cellos. Combined they almost sound like a didjeridoo (sp?) The percussion (bongos) works wonderfully here as does the fretless bass. Naked Moon has one of the best instrumentations I've heard on mp3.com ... I'm very impressed.

The vocals are liquid and velvet like. In Alan's Artist Info on his mp3 site, he is compared to Jim Morrison. Well, Jim Morrison was a true rich baritone. Alan Horvath is much more of a tenor. The lower range don't sound quite as comfortable to him as the upper notes. However, the character and quality comparisons between the 2 singers' instruments are definitely valid.

I don't generally like free form poetry put to music. It just never seems to work. I am wrong here. It works. Alan adds enough character to his singing to pull it off. The "speaking on pitch" that Alan uses in the beginning is actually called sprechstimme and again, works well here - adds to the overall free form style.

This probably wasn't the best piece to review because of the avant garde style. However, I enjoyed it all the same and applaud his effort. This one works!

Recommendation: yes! great musician/great poet!

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