Discus regular Nick Robinson has been experimenting with guitar looping for over twenty years and his experimental trio Das Rad finds opportunities to interweave them with Martin Archer and Steve Dinsdale. Here though on a rare solo outing, it is all about the guitar in all its incredibly varied manifestations.
The spare clash of disparate notes echo and fuzz, the roar of overdrive, a proggy swell with tones and textures that are harsh and grating. If this were a garden, here is the overgrown wasteland right at the back, full of nettles and blackthorn, tugging at sleeves and tearing at skin, but with a hidden beauty in which lurk young birds, a haven for insects. Distortion is manipulated and mangled, but can make way for an almost Spanish feel. Clear blue skies are evoked and it is Nick’s care with the the placement that allows the listener to be guided.
This is not a virtuoso guitar album and it is all the better for it. It is a complex and considered series of patterns, as if he is painting with the guitar, constantly stepping back to ensure that the effect is right. The sweetness of some notes, the juxtaposition of backwards-looped elements, it all leads ever onward. There is Americana-style fingerpicking, a sense of pursuit along country lanes under gathering clouds; and at other points we are struck by the melancholic, cyclical insistence. The simplicity and willingness to allow notes to hang, suffused with space, is admirable. Siren sounds, distant, abstract and ominous resound, but ally with a drifting gentle breeze, the lightest waft with birds chattering in the trees. Drones perfectly envelop the soundstage, lending shade; while brief explosions of static scare the birds from the trees. Look a little further beyond this arboreal cluster of tranquillity and peace reigns again, with just the odd hint of discord. Staccato notes blow in the wind like so many leaves and there is a pastoral calm to a lot of the album that could only have been produced in the UK. At times, the pieces drift like wraiths, laden with texture, moving gently, notes barely present amidst echoing silence.It kind of makes me think that it is the sort of sound that Maurice Deebank may have arrived at if he had this inclination, because there is something of that Felt texture and a resolute love of the guitar. But if anything, Nick manages to go way beyond those ideas and expand, stretching the confines and ending up with something that is uniquely his.
This is definitely one of the most satisfying solo guitar explorations I have heard and is a must for anybody inclined that way.-Mr Olivetti-
