new guitarists : review page 3

Cuneiform Rec.Forever Einstein : Racket Science (US,2005)****

For this new 5th album of Forever Einstein, they have a new, mostly carefully contributing/interacting bassplayer Kevin Gerety, who stays a bit in the background, mostly backing the electric guitar of Charles O’Meara (Vrtacek) which leads very much the compositions, with drums by John Roulat. The music is very much a kind of fluent instrumental rock with very clear and pleasant melody evolution. The music is never difficult. The inspiration goes from early 20th century classical music composition over jazz and blues improvisation, over some surf twist element, always with the one (melody) line of the electric guitar, with relaxed and pleasant compositions, with their essence into tunes. Still different electric guitars are used now and then for extra or different accents, like fuzz-guitar or even an electric sitar on a few tracks, with a flavour of rock'n roll exotica. I also like to mention the great use of howling dogs on track 10.

Audio : Track 7, "God has a plan for me, and it involves puppets"

Homepage : http://www.forevereinstein.com/

Label's entry & intro : http://www.cuneiformrecords.com/bandshtml/forever.html

Vhf Rec. Jack Rose : Two Originals of ....

– Red Horse, White Mule & Opium Musick -(US,rec.2001,2003,rei.2004)*****

While Jack Rose also is part of the group Pelt, it’s with these albums that his talent as a guitarist flourishes. This is a compilation of his first two solo LP’s, together about 70 minutes of sonic bliss. I’m very happy for this renewed attention on the Takoma guitar styles, and the further development of them, by people like Steffen Basho-Junghans, or Glenn Jones. Jack Rose seems to get profit from it, for he might get to similar results instinctually plowing the fields in what the new generations are digging into deeper.

On the first part with the first 4 tracks, “Red Horse”, “Dark was the Night”, “Cold was the Ground” (Johnson), “White Mule” & “White Mule II” for Jack Rose this is a fingerpicking exploration to the direction of the guitar-raga, spontaneously developed to that specific natural feel of it. “Hide the Whiskey (Blues for the Colonel)” is much more a kind of bluesguitar experiment. In between the recordings of both albums, the liner notes say Jack Rose learned the secrets of the ragtime. Dr. Chattanooga Red, it says, asked on his deathbed to bring its essence over to the next century. I don’t notice any direct ragtime influence, but I do hear some very interesting explorations which combine raga and blues improvisations and various kinds of fingerpicking developments (especially in "Linden Ave Stomp" (Rose, Jones) and “Mountaintop Lamento”. The first track, “Yaman Blues”, is a very beautiful raga-like guitar playing with accompanying (Indian) tampura. The last track, “Black Pearls” is another interesting composition. It starts and ends with flights of a train-like wall of guitar sound, in between more raga-like fingerpicking. Very organic. Here I must still admit to readers of my reviews, that myself I’m not so specialised, I’m not even a musician, I can only try to describe what I hear as a music listener. What I surely can emphasize is that 9 $ for such an adventurous and pleasant album of almost 70 minutes is nothing compared to the treasure you get for it !!

Other soundfile on video : "Kengsinton Blues"

Intro's on Jack Rose : http://www.pkms.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/jackrose.html

& http://www.locustmusic.com/jackrose.html &

http://tk-jk.net/euphonic/EuphonicList/JackRoseRottenPiece10-12-.html

Info on this album : http://www.vhfrecords.com/catalog/81.htm

Review at http://www.spincds.com/old/jackrose.html

Review : http://www.stylusmagazine.com/review.php?ID=2009

& http://www.digitalisindustries.com/foxyd/jrose_two.html

Review of "Red Horse, White Mule" & "Opium Music" :

http://www.fakejazz.com/reviews/2002/rose.shtml & http://www.fakejazz.com/reviews/2004/rose2.shtml

PS. "Raag Manifestos" is reviewed on next reviewpage->

Strange Attractors Glenn Jones : This is the wind that blows it out (US,2004)***°°

Glenn Jones, the second new guitarist I’d like to review on these pages, is someone who participated before with his group, Cul De Sac. His solo work gives full focus on his talents. Glenn Jones is a guitarist with more emphasis on technical skills and as much on melody on his fingerpicking.

The title track “This is the wind that blows it out” is, if I hear and know it well enough, is more clearly developed from American guitar traditions, with some slide guitar experimentation. “Sphinx unto curious men” is a moving, brilliant guitar fingerpicking track, of over 9 minutes, with various interwoven ideas, and with beautiful melodic evolutions, themes and thematical breaks. Also “Friday Nights With” has incredible early Kottke like melodic developments. “Fahey car” has much more fingerpicking with slide guitar, a kind of melodic “happy” blues. Glenn Jones (with Cul De Sac) cooperated with John Fahey before, in 1997, on another release called “The Epiphany Of Glenn Jones”. Also the next track, “The Doll Hospital” clearly has such Fahey influences. A brilliant piece if you ask me ! Next title also appeared on the Jack Rose album, “Linden Avenue Stomp”. It is actually a duet with Jack Rose, with much more traditional inspirations. Then the style changes again . “Nora’s Leather Jacket” has a very fast fingerpicking style. No idea what caused the inspiration for this, but it has a bit more of a nervous and loaded (rhythmical) style. Also “One Jack Rose (That I mean)” seems also to be a variation on something I cannot directly recall. Perhaps this is an example of the/a ragtime style brought over to this century (reference to the Jack Rose review above). Also this track is, partly, more rhythmically loaded, compared to the earliest tracks, which sounds more of a harmonious blend of melody and rhythm. Talented !

Homepage : http://www.billtmiller.com/glennjones/

Info on this release : http://www.strange-attractors.com/catalog/saah024.html

Other review of this album : http://www.scaruffi.com/vol5/culdesac.html#thi

Another release by Glenn Jones (Cul De Sac) with John Fahey:

http://www.johnfahey.com/pages/gj.html & http://www.johnfahey.com/pages/epiphany.html

& http://www.fastnbulbous.com/culdesac.htm & http://www.theonionavclub.com/review.php?review_id=1679

& http://www.silvergirl.com/ModReviewsF.html

Soundfiles : http://www.mp3.com/albums/264165/summary.html

PS. I must admit that unfortunately I never heard any full album of Cul De Sac yet.

Cul de Sac info : http://www.culdesac.org/

A few Cul De Sac soundfiles : http://www.epitonic.com/artists/culdesac.html

(PS. For Jack Rose see the review on top of this one).

North East Indie Rec.Micah Blue Smaldone : Some Sweet Day (US,2004)***°

I had to lay this aside for a while, because this is highly unusual for 2004 ! It is very hard to expect such an album that gives the feeling of something from between 1905-1920, and was considered to have died out!? We have here some references way back in time to for instance Blind Blake,.. Micah’s extraordinary voice is definitely an American sounding country-blues voice. It is odd, because it is differently pitched from any other usual white non-slave male voice I know from 2004. "Springtime Blues" definitely recalls the best earliest slavery workman’s blues. The guitar playing is here and there very banjo-like. Some tracks (like "In the Jailhouse Now") also have something funny harking from very early entertainment music from the 20's. Once you are over the surprise : Nice !!

Audio : "My Angel's Wings", "Some Sweet Day", "Blind Boy Rag", "It Ain't No Good", "Spring Time Blues"

Homepage : http://www.northeastindie.com/micah/index.html

Info : http://stage.vitaminic.com/main/micah_blue_smaldone

& http://www.performermag.com/nepcover.php

Label entry : http://www.northeastindie.com/somesweetday.htm

Small review : http://www.zeitgeist-gallery.org/archives/2004/05/21/early_micah_blue_smaldone_death_vessel.html

Other reviews (problems sometimes are expectations) :

http://www.adequacy.net/reviews/s/micahbluesmaldone.shtml &

http://www.splendidezine.com/review.html?reviewid=1083447391241582

& http://www.fakejazz.com/reviews/2004/smaldone.shtml

Other group with Micah Blue Smaldone : http://www.deathvessel.com/

Review of their release at http://singersong.homestead.com/newwriters-2.html

PS. Micah also performed with Jolie Holland. -(Review of her releases at next page)-

North East Indie Rec.Micah Blue Smaldone : Live From Belgium -EP- (US,2007)***'

review is added on

http://singersong.homestead.com/newsingers-17.html#anchor_681

Locust Media Gene Estribou & Jean-Paul Pickens : intensifications (US,196?)***°'

Hard to understand this release went relatively unnoticed until now. For it contains beautiful and masterly raga-folk, and no-blues improvised music played by guitar (Gene Estribou) & banjo (Jean-Paul Pickens). The only info I know from both guitarists comes from the Locust Music label : “Gene Estribou famously recorded the Grateful Dead's second studio sessions & released their first 45 single in 1965. Pickens was one of San Francisco 's legendary 'Diggers' and a knockout banjoist with poet David Meltzer 's folk rock outfit Serpent Power.

Info & soundfiles : http://www.locustmusic.com/estriboupickens.html

Airplayed tracks : Gene Estribou : “You know”, “Eeee Minor” J.P.Pickens : “Coo Coo Bird”, “G.R.”

PrivateDan Cunningham : I think of home (US,2003)*°°

Described as making music in a “new Appalachian” style I had to try to dig deeper into what could be the essence of the “old” Appalachian style (see introduction above), something with which I only partly succeeded. Perhaps I still don’t understand the essence, for me this reference still sounds much too far away, even when one or two tracks gave a different interpretation thematically, which are perhaps fine for the specialist to discover.

The CD starts with the strongest expressions, with subtle guitar pieces, with songs on top of it, some cello, double acoustic guitar. Favourite there are the beautiful and subtle “Plant a Garden”, a quietly flowing warm stream reflection like in a jazzfolk wave, followed by the simple and beautiful cello and harp improvisational composition of “Across the summer’s flowered fields”, and the fine short idea of impressionist double tracked guitar-fingerpicking of “Seculed Pooling Stream” with some cello, and water streaming. After that the ideas of compositions, especially structural and in rhythms take easier solutions which do not contribute automatically to the purest musical inspiration, and also don't give any more chance to more transcendent emotions in inspiration. In that way the carrying voice and potentional guitar, with arrangements only partly succeeded in carrying me, still with pleasure, to some place outside a more common ground.

Info : www.pickndawg.com (other reviews are linked there)

This item (with more soundfiles) : http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/pickndawg2

Holy Mountain Six Organs Of Admittance : For Octavio Paz (US,re.2003,re.2004)**°'

Because this album focuses more on Ben Chasney's guitar style, I preferred to include a review on this page. The album was first released on LP with 500 only pressed. Octavio Paz was the 1990 Nobel Prize winner from Mexico, “for impassioned writing with wide horizons, characterized by sensuous intelligence and humanistic integrity.” This sets the mood : integrity, nylon and steel string finger-picking tracks which are over before one notices. First slightly like a Tibetan meditative impression, on “Fire on Rain”, then starting slightly with a withdrawn melancholy, like on “When you finally return” and “Memory, memory, memory”, building up the moods on "They Fixed The Broken Windmill Today", and “Elk River”, all tracks which are quickly over before one notices. Then the real guitarist even comes more to the front. "They Fixed The Broken Windmill Today" is a long raga-like improvisation like I love to hear Ben Chasney play, with relaxed feel and intention. After “Rain on Fire” as another meditative Tibetan bell introduction, there comes the masterpiece itself as an almost 21 minute track, called "The Acceptance Of Absolute Negation". These Peter Walker-like bluesy raga like evolutions emblossom Ben’s talent with a fantastic fresh play of fast and quiet evolutions of finger-picking developments. Brilliant ! After some seconds of silence we hear another hidden track, with still all the calmness of silence in it, evolving out of something impressionistic... Musically it has something experimental. A small vibrating noise participates, coincidentally, in this. Rewarding.

Info : http://www.holymountain.com/six.htm

& http://www.sixorgansofadmittance.com/

& http://www.midheaven.com/artists/six.organs.of.admittance.html

& http://www.mentaltelemetry.com/artists/sixorgans/sixorgans.htm

Discography : http://www.dragcity.com/bands/sixorgans.html

Other reviews : http://www.digitalisindustries.com/foxyd/sixorgans_octavio.html

& http://www.pitchforkmedia.com/record-reviews/s/six-organs-of-admittance/for-octavio-paz.shtml

Reviews of 2 other releases by Six Organs Of Admittance : http://psychedelicfolk.homestead.com/acidfolkreview3.html

Soft Abuse Langtry : As Upon The Road Thereto (US,2004)****

I noticed the releases of Iron Wine sometime before, but never came to purchase or listen to complete albums. But now when I heard that their guitarist, Patrick McKinney has made a solo guitar album, then it was time to check it out.

Lately I saw the Wim Wenders movie on the blues, Soul of a Man, about Skip James, Blind Willie Johnson and J. B. Lenoir showing something essential of the blues : a performance with a sublimation of the suffering, and even with some transcending humour, while the new blues inspirations that were shown (Bonnie Raitt, Lucinda Williams, Cassandra Wilson,..) often made me wonder if my own personal taste (mostly I do not like blues,) wasn’t confirmed by the idea that blues on its own isn’t such a terrific stylistic genre that automatically has a “life” of its own. With many of the new white blues musicians there is also a different kind of suffering, which seems to me more driven by a lazy and perhaps even spiritless city life and an empty wandering mind. (habit ?). There I wondered where has the real spirit of the music gone rather than this description of the “small pain” coming from a lazy feeling and an empty life ? Takoma guitarists, like John Fahey, on the other hand, uplifted also the blues with other kind of improvisations to a level of skilful and moody creative art. It’s in this new, musically, sophisticated and rich tradition Patrick McKinney travels. It’s the kind of improvisational journey of a traveller or wanderer or perhaps even storyteller in instrumental, from reating filmic expressions, very descriptive and with many changes and evolutions when it moves and moves on. Perfect like it is.

Soundfiles : "Hobojangle" , "Billy Bowlegs Blues"

Label entry : http://www.tinydrawings.org/softabuse/catalog.html

Other reviews : http://usa.scratchrecords.com/moreinfo.cfm?Product_ID=43807

& http://www.digitalisindustries.com/foxyd/langtry_road.html & http://junkmedia.org/?i=1164

& http://www.tonevendor.com/item/13821 & http://www.midheaven.com/artists/langtry.html

Iron & Wine webpage : http://www.ironandwine.com/

Strange Attractors

Six Organs of Admittance : The Manifestation (rec.1999,2004)**°°

This recording of Six Organs of Admittance perhaps contains interesting guitar work.

It is reviewed at http://psychedelicfolk.homestead.com/acidfolkreview3.html

Other Six Organs Of Admittance reviews you can find at

1998, 2000, 2004 album : http://psychedelicfolk.homestead.com/acidfolkreview3.html#anchor_50

2005 album : http://psychedelicfolk.homestead.com/acidfolkreview8.html#anchor_20

2006 album : http://psychedelicfolk.homestead.com/psychfolkpopreview4.html#anchor_211

Cuneiform Rec.Richard Leo Johnson : Poetry of Appliance (US,2004)***°

Architectural photographer Richard Leo Johnson in 1993 released a private release with percussionist Jud Martindale, when he already came to the attention of Cuneiform’s man Steven Feigenbaum, who distributed the album through Wayside. When three years later, he lost his entire work of photography, Johnson changed focus, moved to Nashville, and from now on pursued his music career, with a contract on Blue Note soon after, and with two solo releases in 1999 and 2001. After a cooperation with The Savannah Symphony Orchestra, he formed, with two members of the orchestra, the Richard Leo Johnson Trio. This is with Andrew Ripley on winds and electronics and Ricardo Ochoa on (mostly electric) strings and theremin. This is their début album. It’s not a release that can be placed so easily. The trio works well together in composition, often chamber music like, refined, “educated”, in a way we hear differently from for example Shamrock, Führ & Fröhling and only just a few others, but also with some lead guitar compositions. The different instruments and compositions mostly wave just perfectly in one another.

Audio in order of appearance on CD :

"Highway 420 revisited" , "Charmin' Carmen", "Her to Hymn", "Glidepath", "Eulogy",

"Haploid Springs" "4 Months, 4 Days" "Moon Is a Sky Thing"

More info : http://www.rlj3.com/ & http://www.richardleojohnson.com/guitar/

More info on release : http://cuneiformrecords.com/bandshtml/rlj3.html

Other German review : http://www.ragazzi-music.de/richardleojohnsontrio.html

Review of other item : http://www.progreviews.com/reviews/display.php?rev=rlj-fs

http://www.allaboutjazz.com/php/article.php?id=8340

references to the "APPALACHIAN" Music style :

While I see the reference to Appalachian music is made more often, like with certain tracks of Gene Estribou & Jean-Paul Pickens, Jack Rose, and then also with the next to be reviewed item, we must first try to figure out first what this Appalachian style is, as defenition, etc. because sometimes it's reference is somewhat vaguely and loosely used.. There are several American styles with an evolution of one until 200 hundred years which any distinctive guitarist at least should be able to get acquaintance with the essence of it. These genres are hillbilly, bluegrass, Appalachian. Myself, I cannot completely describe and distinguish the style enough, so I asked the “bruton town newsletter” gow to describe it for me. Kevin,Mark, Jim and Courtney were so kind to help me a bit :

All info is collected in the following text-file : "The reference to Appalachian music"

More info on Appalachian : http://www.sbgmusic.com/html/teacher/reference/cultures/appalach.html

& http://www.appalachianmusic.net/ & http://cass.etsu.edu/ARCHIVES/music.htm

http://www.uky.edu/Libraries/NilesCenter/appwlcme.html

http://www.rootsweb.com/~tncampbe/hist-bogan/amusic.html

Good sound-examples of "Appalachian" style in banjo : http://www.bgot.org.vt.edu/video/cripple_moderate.rm and

http://www.bgot.org.vt.edu/video/cripple_scruggs.rm