Autumn 2023
William Lee Ellis, "Ghost Hymns," 2023
If you like your folk real and with an echo of players like the Reverend Gary Davis, you need this album. Ellis has a PhD in musicology, specializing in music of the American South. Not only did he study it but he plays
it and very well, thank you. Just like those great old recordings, most of these songs were cut in a couple of takes with minimal mixing -- better than field recordings because of our modern equipment but with the same
live feel. There's nothing fancy with the vocals, his folky voice matches the songs. There are some wonderful instrumentals, too.
"Flood Tale" is a disaster song that he wrote after Hurricane Katrina, WLE allowing his Guild 12-string and glass slide to "assert themselves" with a driving rhythm on this number, punctuated by a wailing blues harp by Fraser Speirs over the roil of the music. He changes gears with "Pearl River Blues," a slower song
with some beautiful melodic guitar work played up the fretboard. A dissonant fiddle starts off "Earth and Winding Sheet"; a fiddle also figures prominently in "Call on Me," a melancholy piece with a lovely female backing
vocal by co-writer Julie Coffey. "Mumbling Words" is an upbeat party song with a thumping bass and rhythmic washboard. Try and listen without tapping your foot. Same for "Goat Island." You can hear a bit of the esteemed Rev Davis in "Cony Catch
the Sun." He plays "River of Need" on three different acoustic guitars in three different tunings. The lyrics are beautiful, too... This river of need only flows one way. "Lost Heaven" is one of the instrumentals, you'll
enjoy the delicate fingerpicking. Not every song is from an American tradition. Ellis is a world traveler and it shows in the traditional Ghanaian highlife song "All For You." It sounds a bit like a jug tune from the
Southern U.S. "Belarus," a song written by his father, has a lovely Celtic feel, his beautiful guitar work complemented by piano. The emotional "Bury Me in the Sky" ends Ghost Hymns... a wonderful album.
Wolfgang Muthspiel, "Dance of the Elders," 2023
For his latest ECM release Austrian guitarist Wolfgang Muthspiel brings back the trio with double bassist Scott Colley and drummer Brian Blade who played on his previous album Angular Blues (ECM, 2020). That album was
split about equally between electric and classical guitars: here the main focus is on Muthspiel's classical guitar playing. But "Invocation" opens the set with a gentle electric guitar flow aided by delay. The sound
opens up when the drums and bass enter, and Colley contributes a typically lyrical bass solo before a dreamlike rubato sequence. Then the rhythm section really kicks in and the leader plays a long, overdubbed solo to
end the track. "Prelude to Bach" introduces classical guitar, and despite the title a Bach piece is actually played: Bach's chorale "O Sacred Head, Now Wounded" from his St. Matthew's Passion (the tune that Paul Simon
borrowed for his "American Tune"). The title tune fully unleashes the rhythm section with classical guitar in an ostinato-based rush, reminiscent of some of guitarist Ralph Towner's trio albums for the label. "Folksong"
makes reference to the more song-like compositions of Keith Jarrett, while "Cantus Bradus" has pianist Brad Mehldau (who contributed to Mushspiel's quintet recordings) in mind. The album closes with an extended version of
Joni Mitchell's "Amelia" (played on electric guitar). Muthspiel is a rarity: a guitarist equally skilled at classical and electric guitars. If you are unfamiliar with his playing, this excellent album would be a good place
to start.
Cuthead, "The Second Look," 2022
Cuthead's The Second Look is a gorgeous collection of acoustic guitar vignettes elegantly performed by Dominik Rüegg. Hailing from Switzerland, Rüegg began playing the guitar at 11 and soon found himself performing
with local bands while still in his teens. In 1988 he studied at the Musicians' Institute in Los Angeles returning home to play professionally. After getting additional calls for session dates the guitarist ultimately
built his own recording studio working on films, commercials, television shows, and with pop artists as well as recording his own music. Ultimately the guitarist appeared on or created over 500 albums and 150 film
soundtracks. On The Second Look Rüegg concentrates on solo acoustic compositions which are pristinely recorded, masterfully played, and remarkably accessible. The album begins with "Aries Tune," a lush solo piece
with dramatic chord changes and cascading fingerstyle runs. "Spring" is a reflective musical sojourn with elegant melodies flanked by brilliantly executed hammer-ons and pull-offs. The ethereal "Up and Away"
begins with exotic tape looping followed by deliberate chordal sequences bringing to mind the seminal works of ECM artist Steve Tibbetts. The jaunty upbeat "Let Me Have It" features slide guitar, tasteful acoustic
flat picking, and organ. "Unitor" is a hard driving rocker with scorching electric legato runs reminiscent of Joe Satriani's seminal playing. Rüegg is a consummate guitarist who is able to navigate a myriad of
musical styles. The title track is a reflective nylon stringed ballad with pensive melodic themes that create lush musical panoramas. "Better Days Ahead" begins with delicate acoustic motifs before seamlessly
segueing into blistering electric single string runs. The album ends with "Game Over," a peaceful solo composition showcasing the artists impeccable fingerstyle melodic excursions. Cuthead's The Second Look is
an extraordinary musical offering. While predominantly acoustic the recording also offers exceptional electric guitar work. This album is highly recommended for all fans of eclectic cinematic instrumental guitar music.
Steve Gibb, "Island of Woods," 2023
A native of Scotland now living in the eastern United States, Steve Gibb has pursued a wide range of musical outlets, including composing and arranging for solo guitar, performing as a soloist, and acting in
musical theater. Island of Woods is an album of instrumental fingerstyle guitar, split between originals and covers. Gibb favors steel string guitar and switches to classical for one track. The album begins
with a set of three strongly Celtic sounding tunes. Gibb begins "The Mullindhu" simply, playing the tune's melody with an occasional bass note. He builds the piece with parallel lines and bass notes suggesting
alternate harmonies, which add tension and interest. "Islay Ranter's Reel" and "The High Drive" are faster pieces, where Gibb's speed and articulation remind me of Tony McManus. He interprets "Auld Lang Syne"
beautifully, varying the harmony and melodic phrasing throughout. His version is an excellent example for guitarists who want to arrange traditional airs and ballads. Liz Carroll's "Island Of Woods" receives a
similar treatment, although here Gibb stays closer to diatonic tonality for a more folky feel. "Funky Dog" is one of four originals that recall earlier solo instrumentals by Stefan Grossman, Dave Evans,
John James, John Renbourn, and, more recently, Laurence Juber. "Funky Dog" begins with a blues feel and a swinging, catchy rhythm. Gibb introduces harmonic and rhythmic variety in subsequent sections.
"On My Way!" starts in an American folk vein before moving into more complex musical territory. "Monkey Nibbles" and Broadway Express" each take a similar approach, but with more jazz influences. These are
very guitaristic pieces, utilizing bends, strummed passages and harmonics, all with good taste. David Bowie's "Space Oddity" is a pleasant surprise, as Gibb transforms it with a beautiful solo rendering.
"Peaceful Skies" is a Gibb original, played with three concurrent voices: melody, bass notes and arpeggiated chords. As always, his tonal balance is impressive and equal to his compositional and arranging
strengths. Gibb plays "Tanera" on a Kohno classical guitar. In his hands, the instrument's warm tone makes it a perfect choice for this reflective piece. He plays Carolan's "Sí Bheag, Sí Mhór" with a light
touch and rubato feel, making the much-played tune his own. His chord choices for the piece support the melody beautifully. "Tomorrow's Song", composed by Icelandic musician Olafur Arnalds, closes the album.
Although its title suggests hope, Gibb's langorous pace and legato phrasing evokes sadness and perhaps loss. Steve Gibb is a skilled guitarist and composer of solo works, but he's more than that. He is
remarkably open to the works of other composers and songwriters, which he's sequenced seamlessly among his own works. Guitarists and casual listeners will love this album.
Erkin Cavus & Reentko Dirks, "Ütopya," 2023
Turkish guitarist Erkin Cavus and German guitarist Reentko Dirks met while studying guitar at
Dresden University of Music. They formed the duo Kalkan in 2003 and released their first album Planet Kalkan in 2009. By 2005 Cavus had returned to Turkey. Both Cavus and Dirks continued their studies and musical growth
apart, reuniting for concerts occasionally. In 2017 Cavus returned to Germany and the repertoire of their 2021 release, Istanbul 1900, began to take form. It's an impressionistic musical sojourn to Istanbul
of the last century, inspired by the photography of Ara Güle and a quieter, calmer, less frenzied life. There is an old world presence, beauty, and sonic verisimilitude in the music on Istanbul 1900
that is utterly mesmerizing. With the release of their new album Ütopya, these accomplished, acoustic visionaries have attempted to instead present a glimpse of a
possible future Istanbul.
On the title track, Clemens Christian Poetzsch's piano creates a sonic bridge that the duo's fretwork exuberantly strolls across in a slow waltz,
metaphorically leading us into the future world of Istanbul. No doubt, this is their attempt to convey the very same emotions in the faces of the children who appear in the Güle photo that adorns the cover of Ütopya.
Poetzsch's piano makes another notable appearance on track #6, "Galeri Avrasya," an idyllic jazz-tinged tune that feels extemporaneous and inspired. The effervescent melody is highlighted by Cavus's lead guitar and
underscored by Dirks's percussive rhythm. This reflexive, improvisatory, instinctual, even symbiotic interplay of staccato rhythm and lead guitar is their hallmark.
Cavus plays a custom double neck nylon-stringed guitar made by Turkish luthier Ekrem Oezkarpa, which features a fretless neck allowing him to create sounds associated with traditional fretless Turkish and
Middle Eastern instruments. This ability is essential on the tunes "Maksim Aciliyor" and "Besiktas Bahcesi." On both, Cavus's skill on the fretless guitar eloquently
evokes Istanbul's past, while Dirks's adventurous and kinetic accompaniment adds rhythm, percussion and bass lines. Dirks plays a baritone steel string guitar made by German luthier Oliver Klapproth. The
amalgamation of their playing styles and unique instruments creates a mesmerizing effect. On "Bogazici Koprusu," the robust nature of these techniques and elements, bathed at times in the sounds of children playing,
creates an incredibly moving melody that conveys the past and the future with passion while it builds to an exuberant crescendo. The performances on "Bogazici Koprusu," as do all of the performances on the album,
manifest in vivid images to the mind's eye.
Reentko Dirks's YouTube Channel features several videos in support of the new album, which visually demonstrate the duos exceptional interplay and musical chemistry. Recommended are the videos for "Ütopya" and
"Galeri Avrasya." Both include titles that help expand the vision and message of Ütopya, which might also be called Istanbul 2053. To develop this vision, Cavus and Dirks worked with Futur 2, a German quarterly
magazine published in conjunction with Futurzwei, a nonprofit foundation committed to a sustainable, open society suitable for future children and generations. As Dirks put it,"We imagined how this autocrat system
in Turkey, Istanbul being the main city of it, could be. If we don't think of our visions for the future, other people (or AI) will do it for us. We need these visions. It's all about the question: How do we wanna
live?"
Once you immerse your ears and mind in the impressionistic atmosphere of these tracks, it becomes apparent that what really makes this work is the attention to musicianship and the ability to listen and play with
and off one another. This telepathy stands out on the tracks "Camlica Selalesi," "Dolmabahce," and "Maksim Aciliyor." It is difficult to say who controls the flow of these melodies
as both Dirks and Cavus are intuitive and empathetic musicians who understand that the art of listening must come first in collaborative musical performance and composition.
Dirks remarks on this process: "We sit down, make tea, push "record" and start playing. We play our hearts out. During playing, we get a feeling of what is worth taking a second look at." He also pointed out that the music they
make is more or less analogue, with very little in the way of digital effects and based largely on the richness of the encounters of the players, which, as Dirks pointed out, is what he and Cavus wish for the future:
"less digitalization, more human interaction, more analogue encounters. We imagined the places in Istanbul, re-named or re-functioned it and made a soundtrack of this walk through the city in 2053, but the visions
go for all places around the world. We need to connect, to see that this transition or lifestyle comes with joy, not fear."
What Cavus and Dirks have achieved with Ütopya is an idyllic soundscape of a place and time that says as much about today as it does about a possible future when we hopefully transcend the issues that
weigh us down in the present -- whether that be the harsher consequences of human and societal follies or the day-to-day clutter, noise and vagaries of the modern egocentric and materialistic existence.
Erkin Cavus and Reentko Dirks are nothing short of acoustic visionaries, with impressive musical CVs, fertile imaginations and transcendental talent. Ütopya is a treatise in music and theme.
James Filkins, "Cranes in the Moonlight," 2023
James Filkins, an acoustic guitarist and composer, describes himself as a "sonic wanderer" an especially apt description of his music on Cranes, his latest CD of acoustic ruminations. His impressionistic music is
characterized by lush tones, chiming harmonics, layers of sound, and soulful depth of feeling. On these twelve pieces Filkins, on baritone and acoustic guitars, is joined by a host of other musicians from around
the world who lend tasteful embellishments, including Canadian Noah Zacharin on electric guitar on the lovely "Unfettered" and violinist Jess Townsend (from England) and accordionist Alex Somov (from Turkey)
on the haunting "When Your Wife Travels to Italy." Nature plays a key role in inspiring much of Filkin's music. Following on Borderline Normal (2007) and Summer Sands and Sleeping Bears (2012) (inspired by the
Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore), Cranes in the Moonlight likewise invokes the joy, tranquility, and serenity of the out-of-doors, with titles like "Earthbound" and "Poplars in the Wind." On the meditative
title track Filkins includes the actual vocalizing of the Sandhill Cranes who appear on a lake near his Michigan home, while on the joyful "Good Harbor Bay" Peruvian Luis Vilca's flute seems to dance like sunbeams
on water. "Gray Sky Over Port Oneida" intersperses Filkin's resonant playing with the cello lines by Josia Cieslak of Poland. The interplay throughout the album is subtle but gorgeous, from "Brothers," where
Filkins and Australian guitarist Steve Reinthal are in dialogue, to "Mercy Droppeth Like Rain," with Zacharin again contributing. On "Van Gogh and Picasso-A Conversation," Filkins wittily juxtaposes his own melody
lines with "sentences" of harmonics in a vibrant back and forth. On the final piece, "Forgiveness," Filkins switches to an electric guitar, which somehow underscores the poignancy that is a hallmark of his music.
On this impressive album the compositions - whether drawn from his personal life or from his close attention to nature - work together seamlessly as if part of one larger piece. Although introspective, Filkins
arresting music is inclusionary, drawing the listener in to share in the wonders of the journey.
Ben Verdery & Ulysses Quartet, "A Giant Beside You," 2023
Guitarist and composer Ben Verdery's A Giant Beside You, his seventeenth album release, is a collaboration with the Ulysses Quartet (Christina Bouey and Rhiannon Banerdt, violins; Colin Brookes, viola; Grace Ho, cello).
Three of the four works on the program are world-premiere recordings that, in addition to two of Verdery's compositions featuring him on electric guitar, pair the classical guitar with a string quartet in works by Bryce
Dessner, Javier Farías, and Verdery's arrangement of Leonard Bernstein's first published piece 'Sonata for Clarinet and Piano.' The textural peculiarity regarding the guitar's range in the album's opening piece by
classical guitarist, composer, and co-leader of the indie band The National, Bryce Dessner, reveals the fact that its title, "Quintet for High Strings," is indeed clever wordplay owing to the composer's call for
Verdery's 1995 Smallman to be strung with all treble strings. The result is a through-composed vibrant sonic journey in three sections that assuredly defends the work's eighteen-minute span at every twist and turn.
Verdery's arrangement of Bernstein's "Clarinet Sonata" follows and, although cast in two movements, it can be heard as three. Rightfully abandoning an attempt at true transcription due to challenges regarding sustain,
and also some dynamic considerations, the arrangement distributes the clarinet and piano material between the string quartet and the guitar. This innovative and effective approach preserves the sonata's lyricism and
original charm by utilizing each instrument in the quintet to its best effect. The next two pieces, "About to Fall" and the album's title track, are composed by Verdery and performed on electric guitar. With its charmingly
insolent tones and attitude, the latter is a reworking of a piece originally composed for guitar quartet. The former is dedicated to Ingram Marshall, a late colleague of Verdery's at Yale University, and it is masterfully
composed, exchanging the previous piece's use of distortion, slide, whammy bar, and wah-wah pedal for a pristine tone that works collaboratively this time with the quartet, befitting both title and dedication.
"Andean Suite" by Javier Farías, whose laudable achievements include First Prize winner of the Andrés Segovia Composition Competition, is an exhilarating finish to the program. From the flamenco-tinged "Yawar Fiesta,"
which takes its name from an annual Peruvian ritual fight between a bull and a condor, through to the final movement's pulsating Altiplano rhythms in "Huayno," the wonderfully wild ride of A Giant Beside You ends in a
region at the intersection of Peru, Argentina, Chile, and Bolivia.
©
Jamie Anderson
Buy it at Amazon.com
Listen to "Goat Island"
Listen to William Lee Ellis at our podcast 
©
Mark Sullivan
Buy it at Amazon.com
Listen to "Dance Of The Elders"
©
James Scott
Buy it at Bandcamp
Listen to "Game Over"
Listen to Cuthead at our podcast
©
Patrick Ragains
Buy it at Bandcamp
Listen to "Funky Dog"
©
James Filkins
| Erkin Cavus's Website
Buy it at Bandcamp
Listen to "Camlica Selalesi"
©
Céline Keating
Buy it at Bandcamp
Listen to "When Your Wife Travels to Italy"
©
David Pedrick
Buy it at Amazon.com
Listen to "Andean Suite Mvt 3"
