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Ben Chasny & Rick Tomlinson – Waves (2023)
Review:
On Waves, Ben Chasny joins forces with English multi-instrumentalist Rick Tomlinson for a set of instrumentals. The acoustic guitar pieces that dominate are consistent with the playing of both, especially, in Chasny’s case, Intimate Landscape (2021), featuring fingerpicking that eschews the Takoma Park-style heavy thumb in favor of cascades of notes punctuated by pauses and spaces. The guitars alternately interweave and play off of each other in compelling ways. The tracks seem to be largely improvised, and the recording was apparently completed in just a few days, but there is nothing rushed about it, with each composition having a distinctive feel. On “Ellipse of the Declining Sun,” “Waking of Insects,” and “Wait for Low Tide,” the guitars interweave to generate a web of sound that pulses and shifts almost like a synthesizer. The latter track stretches over nine minutes, with minute shifts in the picking patterns that keep the listener engaged, and the fade-out at the end leaves the impression that the pair may have kept playing for hours. The other acoustic tracks, opener “i” and closer “ii,” are more call-and-response, with the guitars panned hard left and right. The gentle, meditative sound frames the recording as a whole and nicely suggests the two friends coming together and then parting ways. Also adding to the variety is the longest of the tracks, which is completely different sonically. “Paths of Ocean Currents and Wind Belts” is a tape loop creation that shimmers and ripples. It’s as engrossing as the acoustic pieces and doesn’t seem out of place because it shares with them a trance-inducing quality. Hopefully, Waves isn’t a one-off since Chasny and Tomlinson sound great together and bring out interesting features of each other’s playing. — dusted
Track List:
01 - i
02 - Wait for Low Tide
03 - Waking of Insects
04 - Ellipse for the Declining Sun
05 - Paths of Ocean Currents and Wind Belts
06 - ii
Media Report:
Genre: alternative folk
Origin: USA / UK 
Format: FLAC
Format/Info: Free Lossless Audio Codec
Bit rate mode: Variable
Channel(s): 2 channels
Sampling rate: 44.1 KHz
Bit depth: 16 bits
Compression mode: Lossless
Writing library: libFLAC 1.2.1 (UTC 2007-09-17)
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