Mike-K - When I Think Of You

Hear The Track Here

Mike Kohlgraf (aka Mike-K) and I suffer from the same curse, and it ain't necessarily the first curse that automatically sprung into your minds. Nope, our curse is that we are way too soft on the rest of you. Like me, Mike is probably better known for what he does for other artists than for the thing that bought him here in the first place - his music. He has been a long time Soundclick stalwart, forum moderator (now there is a thankless task) and - of late - chief cook and bottle washer over at Songplanet where his Saturday Night Rocks show has become a staple hangout for a great many artists - from all websites. As you may have noticed, Mike has taken a sabbatical from SNR for a couple of months and I can well understand why. See, doing all this stuff generally means that your own material takes a backseat, so it's nice to see that Mike heralds this sabbatical with a new track - or at least I think its a new track. Even I've had to cut down on reviews to fit my own releases for this year in, so let's hope there'll be more...

When I Think Of You, Mike promises, is a 'smooth rock' track although what that means generally veers towards the middle of the road, not a favourite spot of mine. However, he is aided on this track by one of my favourite musicians of this scene: Christopher Martin Hansen. Which is a problem in and of itself. See, IMHO artists with the talent and originality of CMH usually tend to take over and make the music their own, which is what he promptly does here, So it's a given that - whatever Mike may have done - it sounds like something Christopher would come up with. Sooooo, if you like cool, dreamy guitar drenched instrumentals then grab a lughole full of this track because it doesn't come much better than this.

As always though, this kind of material is going to be a question of personal taste.

Having spent time with this track, and knowing both musicians, I found it easy to get past the initial OMG phase and concentrate on what Mike has wrought here. As I said above, if you like the genre, you will love this because its taste is impeccable. The middle lead guitar is courtesy of Mr K, as is the rest of the musical backing track, and it shows that Mike is no slouch at throwing licks around either. What's more, the fit between their two styles is just perfect, each performance dovetailing neatly into the next. Although the genre itself doesn't blow up my skirts, I can certainly appreciate the time, patience and skill it took to make this little beauty. Mind you, though, whats with the extra loud kick right at the end?

Highly Recommended (and a MUST HAVE for Mike-K/CMH fans)