x93Do you want to hear the solo-album of Alan Sparhawk?x94 Alan Who? x93Alan Sparhawk, the guitar player of minimal popband Low and these days also known as member of angst-ridden blues orientated The Black-eyed Snakes.x93 I had never heard of either bands, never found a note played by one of them the time to tickle my eardrum. And there I was, finding myself in the unique position to listen this album without any biased presumptions. Yes, let me listen this album of Alan Sparhawk.

The album is called x93Solo guitarx94 and for a guitar-player this is a very hazardous name. Solo guitar, in my opinion, can only lead to a person playing boring and endless pieces of guitar music. An instrumenton which these musicians seems to be interested in showing their skill in playing pieces which sound difficult but are nothing more than a load of boredom. In my opinion all solo-guitar pieces with theintension to make an album is not a good idea, especially not if the guitar player resides in a popband.

But Sparhawk was careful enough not to go down the same pitfalls as his predecessors did before him. His x93solo guitarx94 is originate more on an experimental base then the basic showing-of-the-skills you would expect. Through the possibility of loops and reverb he entwined his music into drone-like pieces of music.A fair goal, but there is a slight problem. The entire album is improvised and therefore recorded in just one take. This makes it nothing more then a live-album of Sparhawk touching his guitar. Maybe it all was in the studio, but still it was recorded in one take and there we also find the flaw within the album. I would be the last to deny Sparhawkx92s potential in making great music or even lacking the knowledge to make beautiful drone-based music, but this album canx92t even be compared with the real genius of drone musicians. Alan Sparhawk certainly can play a nice pop of music, but when it comes to making experimental guitar music itx92s better if puts some effort into re-working his recordings. x93Solo guitarx94 just misses the tension I like to hear in drone-based music and beside a piece like x93How the freightercomes into the harborx94 it made me fall asleep with boredom.

on Gothtronic