More Guitar Magic Edition: Elkhorn, Glenn Jones & Matthew Azevedo, Bill Brovold & Jamie Saft And Toby Hay
By Aaron Stein Jun 21, 2017 • 11:34 am PDT
Elkhorn: The Black River
If you’re like me (you are, aren’t you?), you can’t get enough of that primitive guitar sound, a relaxing remedy for trying times. Thankfully, there is a plethora of excellent pickers out there to choose from, so it’s been a constant stream of the good stuff lately. Starting off this week’s collection is Elkhorn who follow up their RecommNed’d awe-inspiring self-titled debut with The Black River. This is a guitar duo, one 12-string acoustic evoking the ghosts of guitar past coupled with a straight-up electric giving the ghosts a psych-heavy, modern-day house to inhabit and haunt.
Glenn Jones & Matthew Azevedo: Waterworks
Often when you hear these guitars recorded in the studio, the sound is so pristine and present, it feels like you’re listening from within the guitar itself. This one’s a little different. Primitive guitar master, Glenn Jones, hooked up with producer Matthew Azevedo on synthesizer, harmonium and other effects and recorded live inside the Waterworks Museum in Boston. The sounds positively reverberate on this album, you can feel the room fill up with this gorgeous music. I don’t often feature live albums here, but this one is a wonderful you-are-there experience, and Jones is marvelous as always with Azevedo coloring the guitar perfectly. Enjoy it!
Bill Brovold & Jamie Saft: Serenity Knolls
Hey, you never know. Take two downtown, NYC-avant-garde musicians and put them together, you’d never guess you’d get a gorgeous guitar album – but that’s just what we’ve got here with Bill Brovold and Jamie Saft on Serenity Knolls. Normally a keyboard player, Saft moves to Dobro and lap steel, generating a lush soundscape with Brovold’s electric. The record is aptly named: the music is a peaceful, hypnotic, ambient. Maybe this is the new downtown sound … all right by me!
Toby Hay: The Gathering
After three duos, time for something a little different to close out this week’s recs. Hailing from the United Kingdom, Toby Hay takes his guitar and adds violins, double bass and more to create a unique string quartet on his excellent new record The Gathering. The music tells stories and creates new landscapes, all of them lovely and peaceful. Quite possibly the perfect antidote to the occasionally overwhelming state of the world these days. I hope you’ll give all four of these albums a listen and find some tranquility in the excellent guitar playing therein.
