Michael Lee Hill

Frozen Thought

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A moving collection of rock instrumentals by Michael lee Hill, the artist personally selected by Steve Vai as the winner on the Ibanez/Steve Vai/Tonos guitar challenge.

tracks

: 1 Turn Of The Century
: 2 Transition
: 3 The Lifting
: 4 Feeling September
: 5 Dorothy's Song
: 6 Testing 1,2,3
: 7 Therese'e Garden
: 8 Jibboom
: 9 Frozen Thought
: 10 Zach's Tune
: 11 Jimi's Communication
: 12 Life Just Passes By
: 13 Jibboom (Reprise)

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By Location

USA: Ohio

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notes

For as long as he can remember, guitarist Michael Lee Hill has been hopelessly addicted to the instrument. At a young age he discovered a natural talent for playing guitar, easily learning songs by ear from the radio and quickly absorbing any learning material he could find. His appetite for making music increased in leaps and bounds when the guitar became a means to express complex ideas and emotions largely unaddressed in his "normal" life of school and growing up, etc. -- he was soon spending several hours each day and night concentrating on his craft, often forsaking his friends and social life so he could continue creating music and reaching new heights on the instrument. This would continue through his teens and twenties. Now at age 34, with more than 20 years of playing under his fingers, Michael Lee Hill emerges from obscurity in Ohio with the release of FROZEN THOUGHT, a 13-song concept album showcasing Michael's guitar mastery and exposing deep-running spiritual & metaphysical interests as well.

Musically, Frozen Thought is a Hungry Man Dinner for guitar fans, loaded with texture and tone, and showcasing enough technical proficiency to send a lot of players running. That said, it's not just a record for guitar freaks -- this is a disc of songs, first and foremost, with lead guitar parts as lyrical in places as any vocal could be. Fully recorded in his own studio, for his own label, Frozen Thought is Michael Lee Hill's musical document of an ongoing personal journey for greater knowledge and spiritual awareness. The record sounds almost...organic. Unpolished, honest. Independent to the core, Hill set out to produce Frozen Thought himself in order to maintain his personal vision for the record, and he's delivered a record that somehow sounds as pure as it sounds good.

FROZEN THOUGHT was written, recorded and realized by Michael himself, who created his own indie label Moment Point Records to release the CD this year. Counting Edward Van Halen, The Police, Steve Vai, and Prince as his most significant musical influences, Michael Lee Hill draws from these and other sources of inspiration while never sacrificing one ounce of his own identity; tracks like "Feeling September" and "The Lifting" capture a tenderness and musical sensitivity that runs throughout most of Frozen Thought, while "Testing 1,2,3" pulls out the stops and keeps punching.

Michael also gets to salute his hero Jimi Hendrix in "Jimi's Communication", a recorded improvisation with a groove that feels five feet thick. In an age when too many guitar records sound like everybody else's, Frozen Thought is a refreshing and satisfying disc of mammoth proportions.

The disc also includes "Jibboom", written by Grammy Award-winning guitar legend Steve Vai. In 2001, Tonos.com teamed with Vai and Ibanez Guitars for the TONOS GUITAR CHALLENGE, which was seeking the guitarist who could record the most creative and "best" re-interpretation of the famous Steve Vai track. Thousands of gui-tarists from around the globe entered, but Steve Vai personally selected Michael Lee Hill's entry as the winner of the competition (Hill also received an Ibanez guitar designed by Steve). A mentoring session with Vai would follow, in Detroit at the G3 concert with Joe Satriani, John Petrucci and Billy Sheehan, and Vai granted permission to Michael to release "Jibboom" (Michael's version, featuring the original drum and bass tracks by Mike Mangini and Philip Bynoe)on Frozen Thought.

Frozen Thought Reviews-

EER (Eclectic Earwig Reviews) - http://www.eer-music.com/

Michael Lee Hill's Frozen Thought is a collection of progressive, instrumental rock compositions that feature his highly-charged axework. Hill demonstrates a great command over the hard-edged guitar techniques that he integrates into his cohesive arrangements. Hill's voicings can be described as being similar to the active, riveting tones of Steve Vai.

Aggressive for certain, the compositions are a balance of singing melodies, pyrotechnic hard rock technique, and fluid movement with well-defined direction and vision. I liked the melody-centric nature of the compositions that keep the compositions grounded. The two handed tap-on technique is used with good effect, though it could have been complimented with some sweep picking and the sort to give a little more dimension to the texture. But, Hill's style is what it is and it is distinctive as it is.

MLH gets it going best on the driving track "Jibboom" that pulls all of the elements of his technique and style
together with a powerful barrage that is nearly overwhelming in its drive and projection of vision. Another cool track on this CD is "Jimi's Communication". This track is built around the theme from "Third Stone from the Sun" by Jimi Hendrix and pays well-felt tribute to one of the original pioneers and forefathers of guitar-based instrumental rock.

Followers of the Satriani / Vai school of hard-edged instrumental rock may want to check out this fast-paced, straight-laced, rock-based release from Michael Lee Hill.
- review by Christopher Ruel

Ytsejam - http://www.ytsejam.com

Michael Lee Hill writes, on the back cover of this disc, "This CD is an attempt to communicate emotions, ideas and feelings concerning our personal reality that will never be expressed with words," something that touches on my own reasons for embracing instrumental music. I believe (and I know I'm not that far outside the norm on this) that instrumentals tell their own stories, though what those stories say are sometimes harder to pin down than those told with words -- one of the greatest gifts we, as humans, have been given is not so much speech but music. Here, Hill (a relative newcomer) delivers a variety of stories that leap from sunrise (the infectious and addictive opening track, "Turn Of The Century") to the elegant ("Therese's Garden") and the simply shredalicious ("Frozen Thought").

There's also time to contemplate what Jimi would do "Jimi's Communication," as loving and original a tribute to Herr Hendrix as any I've heard come down the pike) and to cover Steve Vai ("Jibboom"). While Hill resides in the same frenzied-fingered neighborhood as Vai and Joe Satriani and
while he has their same penchant for melody (doubters should go back and take a closer listen), he's his own man, sculpting unique, breathtaking phrases that linger like a long-awaited, good night kiss. Hill's music is invigorating, imaginative and as refreshing as a gust of afternoon warmth after a rain-soaked morning. The stories he tells (or allows us to tell for our-selves)are sometimes elliptical, often mysterious but always inspiring.
- review by Jedd Beaudoin

reviews

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A blizzard of excitement not a flurry of melancholy!
author: Themorus
Pure refreshment served on ice! It has quenched my thirst for a satisfying new musical experience. It is so funky! Really good guitar work with a touch of the blues. So get Frozen Thought today! What a great CD Baby. I am not affiliated with cdbaby or Michael Lee Hill but, I fully endorse them both & appreciate their uniqueness.