Subvalent Rec.
TOMO : Butterfly Dream and other guitar works (JP,2010)**°
One man project TOMO usually was involved in projects that incorporated drone, minimalism and noise rock but he also has a fondness for serious guitar music and the open tunings involved with it and the results it can bring. With his own musical interests this still becomes a completely different angle compared to most guitarists. TOMO had live in Missouri for a while where he discovered old American & Hawaiian music, old Missisipi blues and later of course the Takoma artists. A more recognisable bridge to drones is found in his interests in some Indian and some Persian/Assyrian players.
I liked the interview with Tomo I have read, talking about his backgrounds and interests for acoustic pickings as an introduction for this record. He talks about the orchestral possibilities of the solo guitar, while being aware of the poor volume sustain and resonance compared to other acoustic instruments. In that way, he said, for the sound system for an amplified instrument he pays attention to the loudest volume you can get, while for the acoustic guitar he says it's best to pay attention to the quietest volume to expand the range. With his own background interests in drones music it is clear how this attention and focus to the amplified resonance is blown up a bit.
“Carnival in full bloom” plays majestically certain chords and pickings, this is recorded and loaded with more echoing resonance as usual. The piece is played with fast picking. The long monotony and repetition in it gets a bit lost in its length of over 8 minutes and its constant hypnotic repetition. “Butterfly Dream”, the title piece, starts with a different approach, with a paired picking rhythm with spaces, with droning strings of a hurdy-gurdy in the background. The pickings are getting dissolved in the drones, closing down the composition with it, capturing with it other possible life movements and the progressions, adding sadness instead of celebration to its possible life, the resonance of strings becomes also heavier than the pickings too, the peeping of the drone becomes dominant. This is expressed in over 20 minutes. “Ceremonial Music in Sheol” plays with a middle eastern tuning, using the droning strings heavily with the pickings, adds singing too with its own recorded resonance in the voice. Also this has a droning and stoned effect . “Sliding Milky Way Paradise Lost Blues” has another starting point rooted in blues and slide guitar. Compared to these traditions, TOMO uses a lot more effects on the strings through rubbing, in an original and inventive way, and through resonance, another deeper drone played on hurdy-gurdy is added in the background. The paying depth to Takoma is most clearly visible in the shortest track, “Drifting beyond the border hill to hill” played on 12-string, composed in a post-blues Fahey tradition. It's over before you know it. The beginning of “Raga en Japanesque” starts original, in a koto-playing way of starting a raga, mixing elements of what has been learned from blues also with the Indian raga playing, as an effective and interesting mixture and effective exploration, before the actual still interesting and entertaining picking exploration. The compositional tune of“Farewell waltz” is also in depth to older guitar or perhaps even banjo styles or tunes as well as to happy felt old court dances.
Other review : -
