Locust Music
V.A. : Wooden Guitar (2003)***°'
Another release that proves that there is another generation exploring guitarists in a follow up of what happened with, for instance, the Takoma releases. Jack Rose (from the group Pelt) recorded a splendid spinning wheel finger picking track to lick your fingers on, "Red Horse II", -based upon an earlier composed track-. This creates a feeling of American Highlands-goes-back-to-the-native-origins, reaching hands with their old acquaintances. German guitar specialist Steffen Basho-Junghans who knows the guitar as his interwoven third hand, recorded two tracks for this album. "A North Thuringian Raga" fits nicely with the track from Jack Rose. It is more gentle, in a settled down but still present passion, describing areas for a more easy integration with nature and the environment- almost as a small documentary with every detail translated into music-. In a fingerpicking raga style.
The Japanese guitar improviser Tetuzi Akiyama recorded a track, called "Time Between", that sounds like a slowed down medieval melody, minimilized to echoing chords, made by an odd use of string picking, stretching and waning. Mathematically it repeats time intervals and evolves somewhat in between the playing. If we would have heard the echoes only, this would have been an semi-acoustic ambient piece. The playing itself is harsher. "Time Between" is a surreal world, as a mechanical environment that crawls, moves, but remains stable in space but at the same time, pulsing. Hidden in a clock unknown and unexpected sounds from a mechanistic repetition is freighting, but hearing it repeated the surrealness of it becomes a new expression, another aspect of describing. In almost 21 minutes it is rather long to make only this point, but it is able to convince, in at least that particular aspect.
On the second track by Steffen Basho Junghans, "Smiling Penguins" his guitar sounds like a modernised thumbpiano. Interwoven here and there are more recognizable guitar finger pickings. It is a small track that creates a new world, exotic, with musical maturity. The label owner clearly is one of the fans of the Sun City Girls, an underground avant garde group, and released various albums. One of the reasons to include a contribution from Sir Richard Bishop. (PS. I especially liked Richard Bishop's cooperation with Cerberous Shoall which I reviewed at the mindexpanding acoustic music review page). "Corpuscule" has (or starts with) a more modest playing than the other guitarists. It is interesting from a different angle. It sounds like a personal late night improvisation in an undisturbed room, maybe shared with friends. A moment where everybody goes silent, maybe some of them are slightly stoned, and the moment is fully enjoyed. Something like that. With some arabesque elements.
For this release only 1000 were printed.
Jack Rose solo albums are reviewed at page 3 for new guitarists
Sir Richard Bishop afterwards released a solo CD on the label too. Review on page 4.
