Mezzoforte - Monkey Fields (1996)

30 years on, MEZZOFORTE seem on a great roll. Still fresh-faced, creative and vibrant. After all they were only teenagers when they created Iceland´s first international chart-hit, GARDEN PARTY in 1983. This well crafted instrumental paved the way, allowing musical ideas to flow, develop and mature and making sure their over-night success should not be just a one-night stand. Their stamina and well balanced longevity reflects the name itself, MEZZOFORTE. Playing it strong without distorting. More like a CRESCENDO. A steadily growing, enhanced signal.

From strength to strength indeed well describes MEZZOFORTE´S continuing saga of success. With 40 countries already visited and 11 albums released, The year 2009 will see their 12th album followed by tours of the European and Asian continents as well as their brand new collection of works on DVD distributed worldwide. With original founders Eythor Gunnarsson on keyboards, Gulli Briem on drums and Johann Asmundsson on bass, the guitar chores are now amicably shared between Bruno Mueller and original guitarist Fridrik Karlsson. Other teammates include Reykjavik reed-man Oskar Gudjonsson, Sebastian Studnitzky on trumpet/keyboards and percussion-powerhouse Thomas Dyani.

This line - up recently celebrated the 25th anniversary of GARDEN PARTY with an open-air concert in the most appropriate Central Garden of Reykjavik, Hljómskalagardurinn. This concert gave a truly magnificent overview of MEZZOFORTE´s great body of work, starting with numbers from their self-titled debut in 1979, through albums such as SURPRISE, SURPRISE ! OBSERVATIONS, RISING, NO LIMITS, PLAYING FOR TIME , DAYBREAK, MONKEY FIELDS, FORWARD MOTION and finishing off with new compositions from their forthcoming release.

It was a grand GARDEN PARTY indeed, mirroring their own glorious musical history while marking a new exciting phase for this extraordinary group. While MEZZOFORTE is truly based on solid musical pillars, the group keeps refreshing and reinventing itself by constantly reveling in new concepts which typically lead to imaginative new global & musical adventures.

There is undoubtedly a lot to look forward to indeed for us MEZZOFORTE followers!