Along The Winding Road by Nautilus

In the course of the last decade, German based trio Nautilus have created themselves a very unique position in the realm of New Instrumental Music by releasing five fine albums on which they transformed topics from the fantasy novels of Jules Verne into a beautifully melodic space-sound.
On their sixth album “Along The Winding Road” mastermind Martin Ludwig and his friends now have changed direction in some respects:
For the first time a  Nautilus album in no way refers to Jules Verne, but focuses on Martin Ludwig’s very personal experiences. Deeply struck by the death of near friend in Irak, Ludwig decided to now express his innermost thoughts through his music. Impressions from the days of youth (“Free Flying Spirits”, “Strawberry Dream”, “Green Was The Colour”) as well as meditations on war (“A Heaven’s Call”) or death  give the album a fine, thoughtful and slightly melancholic touch. Musically there is a new balance between the synthie sounds of Martin Ludwig and new band member Jürgen Dürrbeck and a variety of acoustic instruments, which results in a very warm and round overall sound, which Ludwig calls “ a kind of ambient-progressive-folk”. Once again guitarist Werner Strätz sets very special melodic highlights, and with Eroc (founder of the legendary German Krautrock act Grobschnitt) an old Nautilus companion has provided some highly interesting samples.