Birdman Rec. 
Peter Walker : Spanish Guitar (US,rec.2006,pub.2009)**°°'
(graded less because of recording quality of last few tracks)
I remember Peter Walker from his early explorations to mix Raga with North American guitar styles. Peter had already been exploring guitar techniques in Spain and North Africa, was living in Mexico for a while listening to Indian music. He also had been studying with Ravi Shankar and Ali Akbar Khan. On his first album, “Rainy Day Raga” he was one of the early explorers reinterpreting the raga style for use in Western guitar music improvisation.
The technique he used therefore on “Rainy Day Raga” was as following :
“He employed the Indian concept of starting with a drone, adding a scale based on the drone, then a melodic line based upon the scale, then weaving, reweaving, and interweaving the melodic line so that a freely improvised piece is constructed. When playing ragas on the guitar his approach is to set up a drone pattern usually based upon the first, fifth and fourth intervals of a western scale, and when he feels that, a steady pulse of the drone has been established to work in a melody line based upon a popular American folk song or whatever melody line he finds appealing. When that melody line is inserted he improvises on the emotions of it staying within the same modal structure, adding additional combinations of notes when improvising.”
After another album, which didn’t appear for any reissue yet we can find him in association, as a meeting point with Dr.Timothy Leary and in relationship with Karen Dalton and the like minded Sandy Bull (who explored raga guitar around the same time before turning to the oud). Peter disappeared from sight until a few years ago with some releases on Tompkins Square. Last year we also had “A Raga for Peter Walker” with four new pieces and some dedications of guitarists who admired his work (Jack Rose, James Blackshaw, Steffen Basho-Junghans, Thurston Moore and Greg Davis). His dream was now to show the other side of his approach. Before the “Rainy Day Raga” he had visited Granada finding some unexpected links between Spanish and Indian styles. One link I did not hear about yet is that Peter discovered that Muslim conquerors in Delhi had shipped captives back to their outposts in Granada in the eighth century, which amongst women were also artists and musicians as prizes of war. Where on “Rainy Day Raga” his focus was mainly the adaptation of the raga into western standards, Peter had the dream to show now the other side, where Spanish guitar could turn to Indian music ideas.
Myself, I could hardly find or recognise the link, but what is clear is that he developed his own style of a rather fast way of improvisation where some Spanish music lines are recognisable, but which follow different tensions, where melodies evolve moodily while crafty tensions of muscular strength appear, like in flamenco which change the evolution on its way, and which gives an unusual but interesting combination of melodic picking and emotional tension, which neither gives you the ability to dream away into the moody melodic lines but needs more apprehension and concentration to the effects of contrast and surprise. Such recordings need a few listens and at least optimal recording quality. Unfortunately the last session of a few left over tracks is not recorded too well and has a disturbing mechanical vibration in the background, which disturbs a bit the listening appreciation. Especially the brilliant “The Light and The Waterfall” I hope it will be rerecorded better one day for this deserves full concentration and attention. The album still is a treasure that can provide new ideas. Especially the combination of different sorts of pickings and melodic improvisations (Spanish, improvised or theme-like) are really rewarding.
