(August 2009) Guitars weave complexity in their strings for yet another astonishing project. A first recorded collaboration between two known experimental artists, Daniell and McCombs, the work evokes all of the colors and textures of man and nature with the wicked twist of electronic processing.
Undulations of string wavelengths spread in multihued cornucopias over ambient unsystematic backdrops. Plucks, squeaks, twangs, clangs hit the stark, spacey air between musical shapes, evoking time, distance, and breath. The guitars morph into metal pipes, clocks, mice, flutes and other unidentifiable forms in the darkened, slightly reverberating musical space. Processed to the point of being other things entirely, they play their roles with stark realism.
At other times, Daniel and McCombs’ instruments play out their original roles, in “Vejer de la Frontera;” they lay down warm melodies that spread out like a lazy drive through the desert, flat and boundary-less. Scenes of life seem to pass by as an undulating, swirly groove, like water gently swaying in a disturbed pool. Nylon strings bring hints of the passion of flamenco, heat dissipated by notes of cool jazz.
Delicate jazz cymbals rise and fall, sparkling and shimmering as the glint of the sun on the sand, or, as in “Bursera,” disordered wakeup calls. Percussion loosens and falls apart as these songs progress, fluxing and flailing with wild abandon and climax until each piece comes to a gentle, ordered ending.
Sycamore is a dreaming tree. The album boggles the mind, one instrument producing such a vast, rich variety of sound. Perhaps what the world needs now to achieve peace isn’t harmony, but a little bit of distortion, a dash of chaos, a splash of magic, and a lot of guitar strings.
Sycamore is out soon on Thrill Jockey. [Purchase]
Read Igloo Magazine profile with Doug McCombs here.
