Spring 2024 Short Takes Brief Reviews
Sean de Burca "Revenant" 2024
This is a cool concept project: write 4 interesting fingerstyle songs, then create alternate versions that are electric / heavy metal. On Sean de Burca's album Revenant, that is just what he has done - and it works.
The four songs - "Paramnesia," "Deteriorate," "Reanimate," "Revenant" - all stand solid on their own - compelling compositions with interesting parts using a harp guitar. De Burca uses the drone strings to great effect
in offsetting the melody line from the normal 6 steel strings. He uses percussive techniques as well. For the second half of the CD, he flips the switch, adds real percussion, as well as heavy electric guitar over the
acoustic parts. Probably the heaviest version of the electric tunes is "Deteriorate," and if you like progressive metal, you'll enjoy it. It's a two-for-one day on Revenant, and this reviewer thinks that's a good deal!
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Kirk Albrecht
Robin Bullock "Wolf Tracks: A Retrospective 1993-2022" 2024
This career overview presents Bullock on guitar, both fingerstyle and flatpicked, mandolin, cittern, and even piano. His stylistic range spans Celtic, classical, bluegrass and more, all in impressive depth. Musicians
joining him include Liz Knowles on fiddle, Michel Sikotakis on tin whistle and flute, Tony McManus, Al Petteway, John Doyle and Steve Baughman on guitar, and Sue Richards on Celtic harp. I found many surprises in this
compilation, one being Bach's "Prelude from Suite No. 2," played on solo mandolin. His fingerstyle guitar duet with Al Petteway on "Southwind" is another highlight, although every performance on the album is at such a
high level that picking "best" tracks seems wrongheaded. Drive, precision, clarity, versatility, and commitment are qualities that characterize Bullock's music, and they combine to make great listening
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Patrick Ragains
Jason Keiser "Grassology" 2024
Jason Keiser elevates bluegrass music to an expanded astral plane on Grassology, featuring 15 of his solo guitar tracks. As composer and performer, Keiser provides a variety of styles and interpretations of the genre,
including shadings of jazz, flamenco, folk, "Dawg" and chamber, which he melds into his own amalgam. In his liner notes, Keiser cites some of his key influences: Joe Pass' jazz guitar on "Virtuoso," David Grier's work
on "I've Got the House to Myself," Bob Minner's "SOLO" album, as well as the work of his mentors John Stowell and Mimi Fox. The title track of Keiser's album is a musical romp that starts off bass heavy, a little
pondering, then it revs up, and races along at a breathtaking clip, like a bumblebee zipping through a field of grass and dandelions, ending with a hint of a musical question. "Opus 38" feels like stately olde England,
"Bill Cheatham" nods toward the Appalachian, "So It Goes" brings to mind the ringing strings of a harp, "Val's for Dawg" haunts with its minor undertones. Keiser also tosses in an impromptu cover, recorded in one take,
of "You Are My Sunshine" (yes, that one!). His liner notes cover a lot of ground, as he shares various capo placements, tunings, metric and key modulations, chord shapes and finger placements, among other insights.
Quite a thoughtful collection.
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Fred Kraus
Luca Brunetti "Directions" 2023
Directions is an ethereal, ambient acoustic guitar album by Italian guitarist and composer Luca Brunetti. The 15 tracks on the CD incorporate much more than just guitar, with keys, synth, bass, electric guitar.
Except for drums on one track, Brunetti plays all the instruments. His Bandcamp page says his music is played all the time by broadcasting companies worldwide, and I wouldn't doubt it - the musicianship is solid all
around, and the compositions are compelling and tasteful for this genre. His guitar playing is sometimes sparse, just another layer in the overall sound of each song; other times it's more out front. For his ambient
sound, his guitar often uses significant reverb. The songs drift and weave like a gentle stream. This is great music for a quiet afternoon with a good book.
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Kirk Albrecht
Steve Hicks (plays Duck Baker) "The Oak and the Willow" 2023
Master fingerstyle guitarist and custom luthier Steve Hicks is based in the UK. He's released several solo albums and performs with singer Lynn Goulbourn. Here he plays sixteen solo guitar compositions by fingerstyle
legend Duck Baker, and displays an uncanny sense of Baker's eclecticism, tone, and timing. There's a strong Celtic feel on "One For the Man," wistful impressionism in "Deidre" and "There's No Time Like the Past," and
more than a cursory nod to Thelonious Monk in pieces like "Jaybird" and "The Rook." The music is wonderfully evocative of Baker's international emergence in the 1970s, and demonstrates his unique contributions for
both old fans and new listeners. The album and a book of transcriptions are available at Duck Baker's online store. Kudos to Steve Hicks for this labor of love.
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Patrick Ragains
Chris Moore "Sentinel" 2023
Chris Moore's collection of seven originals, following up on his first offering, Renaissance (2011), amply displays the Yorkshire, England guitarist's considerable gifts. His playing, crisp and impeccable, is nothing
short of breathtaking. Rather than separate distinct pieces, the album sounds like one long work with seven parts, the titles and intensity suggesting a story being told of an epic battle. The music is urgent,
sophisticated and rhythmically complex. It opens with "Ascendancy," a feverishly paced romp through many variations that features Moore's astonishing right-hand fingerstyle technique. "Odyssey" is a more percussive and
jangly, layering in harsher tones and strumming, while "The Knight and the Sage" goes in a slightly slower, moodier, direction. Here Moore uses his thumb for a repeated, impossibly fast, bass note. "Warrior," too, is
rhythmically and texturally complex, with hypnotically fast arpeggios. His left hand is off the charts, too. Just listen to title song "Sentinel" and "Starlight." We end with the intensity of "Dominion," another tour
de force piece in this tour de force song cycle. With his complex compositions and virtuosic ability to play at warp speed with impeccable timing and beauty, Moore is as skilled as any contemporary acoustic fingerstyle
player today.
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Céline Keating