I never really liked solo guitar instrumental albums, though slack-jawed at the virtuosity, most just didn’t have listenability legs for me. In my head I’m just making music, though my primary instrument electric guitar. However the slightest amount of objectivity, I have to own up to having made another solo guitar instrumental album. I wouldn’t say there is a consistent genre throughout, but “hard progressive” might be the best broad stroke, though it’s often not hard, or progressive.

I went into this with the intention of making an album in late 2024. Two previous albums were stumbled into without that goal. After a year plus of work, “Restless” is done. David Nielsen again provided drum performances, this time on seven of eleven tracks, and again Evan Schiller mixed and mastered the work, pulling my tracks up out of amateur mud.

Additional thoughts about the work, recording, and gear are in the next post here

Listening links, streaming links to come as they come on line-

My youtube channel “restless” playlist

bandcamp

Track list/descriptions-

 

1) Migration– Some bombast, lots of mellotron, probably the most ambitious structurally and one of the first completed. I have a movie in my head for this, actually for each of these. David Nielsen drums.

 

 

2) Departure– Big instrumental proggy fusiony rock, the influences fairly obvious, but divergent. David Nielsen drums.

 

 

3) Waiting– Simple, spacial, song. There are some obscure influences here, but mostly driven by mood and feel. Written and all tracked months ago, other than the lead, which was waiting for a custion guitar build to complete. I knew it would give me the sound I needed for this. David Nielsen drums.

 

 

4) Don’t Go– Riff rock with a groove (hopefully) . This began several years ago with vocals and bad lyrics. After sitting for a while I rearranged it as a guitar instrumental and tracked with friends Dave Taylor and David Nielsen, then re-tracked for this. David on drums.

 

 

5) Suspension– Spacial, hopefully pleasant, aimless, using some existing elements from previous efforts, and truly intuitive stream of consciousness writing. Many divergent influences here. David Nielsen drums.

 

 

6) Cover– Pretty aggressive hard prog, with influences on my sleeve. Initially inspired by a re-occurring dissonant motiff in an old jazz rock jam on youtube. Mellotron abuse here, start to finish. Ukraine was weighing on my mind while working on this. That, the piece, the image for the vid, the sound, seemed all connected for subconscious reasons.

 

 

7) Obie’s Shuffle– Absurd, belligerent, lot’s of fun for me. Fellow Chris Whitley fans may think this was inspired by “Gasket”. No. Keith Olbermann’s theme song starts with samples from the 2nd movement of Beethoven’s 9th Symphony, quickly turning to a hard rock shuffle. It stuck in my brain, hence the name. Another driven by instinctive self-indulgence. All P90s. Stomp up and down in a mud puddle in your best clothes, or flop wildly around the house to it, loud.

 

  

8) Landings Unimagined – Surprisingly inspired by Polinski’s, “Telex From MIDI City (DATA111)”, a completely unrelated genre- elements of IDM, frenetic D&B, synth programing, and more. Leaving those genres behind, it was the conjured head spaces. I was after a certain feel, from the internal to external places, harmonic changes, textures, etc… perhaps it’s a space rock piece, though I admit no familiarity with the genre.

 

 

9) Jargon– another indulgence, I resurrected every cliche guitar noise malarky from the 60s-70s I was supposed to outgrow. I used to brandish more cacophony noises than these but I’m out of practice. Definitely a strat piece, hopefully with a groove. Like Obie’s this is one where some dumb idea comes to mind, quickly discarded by better instincts, and then.. oh hell ya.

 

 

10) Strut Looking Up– Rock and roll, initially based around a 70ish riff, but proceeded into a lot of 90s influenced guitar. The 90s had a lot of great guitar in addition to grunge, Swervedriver, Catherine Wheel, to name just two. Lots of dyads, major, muff style fuzz, repetition. Originally “Struttage”, but then after some gymnastics the ending came out of the ether surprisingly aspirational, so “… Looking Up”. David Nielsen drums.

 

 

11) Passage– Definitely a progressive piece. I wanted a song that felt like this for the album all along, but I procrastinated lacking confidence. As time was running out I dove in, surprisingly it just flowed out and was done relatively fast, including David’s tracks.