Wednesday, January 1, 2014

American Primitive

The label American Primitive gets applied ever and ever more loosely. Typically it's slapped on to anyone slavishly copying John Fahey's pioneering fingerstyle acoustic guitar playing from the '60s/70s. It's exceedingly rare to find anyone stretching the boundaries, but James Blackshaw's majestic "Spiraling Skeleton Memorial" is a good example. A Bandcamp reviewer steered readers to Danny Paul Grody's Between Two Worlds, for instance, but the only engaging track I found was the dense, beautiful "Time Spirals"...



I think Fahey himself would've encouraged the likes of Tashi Dorji, a guitarist from Asheville, NC, who employs extended technique and a contact mic in his solo guitar excursions. "hills rose up golden" is from his self-titled cassette, also available as a download from his Bandcamp site...



I also found Cian Nugent from Dublin, Ireland, lumped in with the american primitives. Despite copping visually from Neil Young and Crazy Horse on the cover, his wonderful guitar playing on this Matador single instantly brings Tom Verlaine to mind, as well as Roger McGuinn and Richard Thompson. Definitely gonna keep up with this guy in the future...



A reminder: when you buy songs or albums from Bandcamp, the artist receives 85% of the money! It's a terrific way to support independent musicians so they continue to do what they do best...

Tim Gilbride

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