glenn jones

glenn jones - against which the sea continually beats (strange attractors, 2007)

 "Since 1989, Glenn Jones has led Boston’s “avant -garage” instrumental rock band, Cul de Sac, whose musical adventures are documented on nine albums to date, including a soundtrack for cult-director Roger Corman, and collaborations with guitarist John Fahey and former Can vocalist Damo Suzuki. A 30-plus-year devotee of the so-called “Takoma school,” Jones has written extensively on the steel-string guitar’s leading lights: John Fahey, with whom he was friends for nearly 25 years, and Robbie Basho, who befriended Jones during the five years before his untimely death in 1986. With former Takoma label guitarists Peter Lang and Michael Gulezian -- along with Loren Mazzacane Connors, Henry Kaiser, Gary Lucas, Tony Conrad and others -- Jones performed at sold-out concerts honoring John Fahey, in NYC and San Francisco, shortly after Fahey’s death in 2001. In 2004, Jones stepped out of the long shadow cast by Takoma’s guitar visionaries and offered his own "new possibility", This Is the Wind That Blows It Out, for Strange Attractors Audio House. Its release was followed by a month-long tour of Europe with guitarist Jack Rose. Jones has since shared bills with Steffen Basho-Junghans, Max Ochs, Matt Valentine/Erika Elder; along with Rose, he’s toured with Peter Lang, and with some of the best of the new breed of solo guitar upstarts: Harris Newman, Sean Smith, and James Blackshaw, among others."

Glenn Jones grabó este disco en Martha's Vineyard de Tinsbury, una isla al parecer preciosa que inspiró los cuatro días que duró la grabación. la producción es excelente, cristalina, tranquila, se puede visualizar el paisaje porque cada canción respira un clima que me hace pensar en la misteriosa isla retratada por Miguelanxo Prado en Trazo de Tiza. una guitarra de doce cuerdas haciendo oleaje en los once minutos de infarto de 'Freedom Raga', el fingerpickin' casi vulnerable pero arrebatador de 'Heartbreak Hill', el chapoteo del agua, el ruidito que hacen las cuerdas de un barco amarrado a la orilla, la marea que sube y baja en 'Island 2' (quien pudiera estar ahí), o la dulce hipnosis de 'The teething necklace (for John Fahey)', en la que Glenn, al enterarse de la muerte de John Fahey, llevaba trabajando desde el 2001, y a la que por fin dio forma durante una gira con Jack Rose (¿tal vez en ese 'A night of Guitars' que recaló en Vigo?). en Against Which the Sea Continually Beats, a la altura del maravilloso This is the wind that blows it out ('Sphinx unto curious men' siempre será una de las cosas más bonitas jamás grabadas) y de sus colaboraciones con Harris Newman, Glenn Jones continúa abriendo un pequeño cielo que viaja del Delta a los Apalaches, y confirma que, como miembro de los olvidados Cul de Sac o en solitario, está, por derecho propio, en la galería de los exquisitos. 

Little Dog's Day (mp3)

Cady (mp3 sample)

Freedom Raga (mp3 sample)

Heartbreak Hill (mp3 sample)