Shortly into the first track of this new album by George Christian, my ears really stood up at attention because that one modulation was like a step up, through a mountain pass, a kind of Balboan or Magellanic discovery moment, where I could suddenly see the previously unseen, via unknown modulation. And the whistle and the pauses. Sudden potentiating silences. It's George's sound but something else. O Vento is the song.
It's a traditional song, George tells me later. "Thanks to Caymmi, indeed. I respected his original intention as best as possible. The real difference between his version and mine is the guitar arrangement."
The new album runs a gamut. I've been wanting to speak more with him and you all about this deeper folkloric level in the work which appeals to me immensely and really comes into pirmo piano here -- I feel something very aboriginal emerging there and when the playing relaxes into the slow-paced acoustic space it lingers and mingles with some hackle hairs in the back of my geological memory mind also -- really nice to feel the woodiness of the guitar -- the resonant ping of strings slightly sitar-ical, it's a sound that evolves from the hollows of trees where brid's nests weave --
"I have been dealing with this aboriginal factor in my guitar sound since I became very conscious about the indigenous influence in the Moda de Viola or in the Northeastern Repente. Somehow the fact of the increasing exploration of percussivity in my sound made my guitar even more African. So, I can tell you that this is a way to tell you my guitar might be from the urban seaside of the city, but aims to tell stories that are also talking from the roots of the countryside."
I think I'd always felt this spirit emerging from this acoustic instrument and his sense of how it belongs there, connected to the playa and the trees, although sometimes he gets get crazy with swampy reverb, delays or accompaniment where the guitar is lost inside a participatory dionysian joy, the guitar tossed on waves of a greater musical frenzy -- and there is a bit of that later in this album too -- a few longish polyinstrumental freakouts I have not been able to analyze carefully -- for lack of time. But overall it's the earthiness of the guitar breathing resonance and old stories and ghost voices that on this last record now hits home, or finds its home inside me, at minimum.
Also on my mind recently is the album George made with Michael Sill which I've been wanting to write about but this recommendation will have to suffice -- these works are filled with a global dynamics -- folklore in the quantum space-age -- ecological evocations -- aspirations to earthly energies -- africa, brazil, australia, india -- the sounds are earthy and all about roots or routes -- when I can smell some palo santo --- sandalwood -- rare and precious things -- I appreciate this unadorned presencing of naked growing undetermined essences --
While Europe is obsessed with technology, commerce and war, it' a relief. Enough of my babble. Listen for yourself
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