Alan Sparhawk's album Solo Guitar puts forth a strong, minimalist rock sound that begs the question: can a rock album sustain itself on only atmosphere? Sparhawk (one part of the mood pop tri Low, from Duluth Minnesota on the heels of their master stroke, The Great Destroyer) creates a record of 43 minutes - nine songs, none of which serve to evoke any real tension. They are somber, straining tracks that pierce and drone into the unconscious, urging not so much action as inaction with thoughtful purpose.
And it is something you've never heard.
It would be rueful to delve too deeply into a review of Solo Guitar without first illustrating its method. The entire album was recorded live, using guitar loops and reverb, a technique that results in a present, performance quality that is so rare. It feels like Sparhawk has plugged in, right there in your audio system. Free of song structure and studio structure as well on this record, the slowcore rock genius broadens the spectrum of guitar exponentially. On the record, there aren't songs per se; there are segments of mood divided into edible bites. Seven of the nine tracks are less than three minutes, with two in the middle at over thirteen. The shorter tracks are pieces, splendid jams that get brilliant shrift, a la Another Green World an album of experimentation that is so tantalizing it would make your head spin to imagine any of its ideas fully realized. In the end there are traces of aggression (tracks "How the Engine Room Sounds" or "Eruption by Eddie Van Halen", if you need names) amid the languid, a necessity, but they are short and spaced out with long pauses. More accomplished pieces "Sagrado Corazon de Jesu (first attempt)" and (second attempt) are similar to one another in their sprawling, technically masterful ways. A few minutes under this spell and time is as obsolete as vocal chorus.
Retreating from the original premise that this is a rock album, it would be more accurate to say that this is an anti-rock record. Sparhark creates a sustained piece of ponderous temper, and on the way to that lofty, perhaps avant-garde ideal, a wonderful bit of real music. The deceptively simple titled Solo Guitar isn't party rock -- remember, it isn't rock, not even as much as Low is. It's a harkening back to experimentation and boundary pushing by Tom Verlaine and Eno, and is ultimately one of the better recordings of 2006. |