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Fish Griwkowsky He's smart. He's sexy. He's Ottmar. But beneath (or is that above?) all these things, he's essentially a serious classical guitarist who's happiest when he gets to make the rules. "It was kind of an irreverent approach to classical music," he says of his last and upcoming albums. What you get when you slip in an Ottmar Liebert CD is a floating flamenco guitarist at work, flirting with jazz and New Age elements enough to take them home. "I had total freedom on Opium (his latest). `Let's just go for whatever we feel like,' was the feeling. It's not the smartest move," he smiles. "The record company made me sign a release stating if sales were low it would be my fault." There is a dichotomy of upbeat and moody to this spacey but beautiful double disc set. A duality that Liebert seems to break through with his own single-mindedness and will. But don't be fooled. "Making Opium," says the band leader of his own Luna Negra, "I let go. During post-production - where a lot of the strange sounds come in - I'd be doing my own thing in the house while my brother tinkered. In this, I had fresh ears and could come in and make my suggestions." Among them, transitional segues dripping in from all over the globe. "Weird crickets," the sound of a train in Milan, Italy, and the distorted, early morning calls of a local New Mexico mosque. All of it combines to produce a drug-like, ethereal experience. Hence the title. "I had been looking at some artifacts of my grandfather," explains Liebert, born in Cologne, Germany, to a Chinese-German father and Hungarian mother. "He had some postcards from the turn of the century of opium dens in China. They fascinated me and I thought opium would make a good metaphor for the seduction into music." Yeah, but what about the chicks, man? I mean, come on, Ottmar, you have to admit Sony also markets you for your sexiness, or did you just lose most of the buttons on your shirt? "Well, you can't really do anything about that," he sighs. "But the music is always the most important thing." Another bonus to Liebert's discs is what they do when you slip them into your computer. Images of Liebert's home and other things he finds interesting, along with production notes and personal thoughts, wallpaper the monitor. "It was an offer I couldn't resist. Sony said, `We'll pay for five designers and five programmers, but we're not sure how well it will work.' " Liebert's happy with the results but cautions, "I think videos are killing parts of music. You end up putting set visuals over the songs. They get linked and you lose something in your state of mind. "Nine is a lucky number in China, so I had them randomize between nine different sets of images, so nothing sticks," he says. "That way, what's important can still come through." You can hear just that at the Jubilee Auditorium, July 7. Tickets available through Ticketmaster (451-8000).
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