Sparhawk, Alan / Solo Guitar
Album: Solo Guitar   Collection:General
Artist:Sparhawk, Alan   Added:Jan 2007
Label:12:38 Music  

A-File Activity
Add Date: 2007-02-04 Pull Date: 2007-04-08 Charts: Classical/Experimental
Week Ending: Apr 1 Feb 11
Airplays: 1 3

Recent Airplay
1. Jun 09, 2009: An Analgesic Haze
Sagrado Corazon De Jesu (Second Attempt)
4. Feb 09, 2007: college radio sadcore
Sagrado Corazon De Jesu (Second Attempt), Sagado Corazon De Jesu (First Attempt), How The Weather Hits The Freighter...
2. Apr 19, 2007: Fiction Romance
How The Weather Hits The Freighter...
5. Feb 08, 2007: Fiction Romance
How The Weather Hits The Freighter...
3. Mar 30, 2007: college radio
How The Weather Hits The Freighter...
6. Feb 05, 2007: Municipal Waste
How It Ends

Album Review
Your Imaginary Friend
Reviewed 2007-01-30
Solo guitar, played trippy, big sparse space, ambient washes, startling bursts. Minimalism juxtaposed with drones and bursts. Fans of recent Earth release (the big twangy record) definitely take note, as well as those of John Fahey and Abercrombie (going way back). Or Flying Saucer Attack, or the washes of tones that made My Bloody Valentine so great. Great stuff. From Deluth, MN (which judging from a lot bands from there seems to be some sort of vortex for creative misfits).

1) sparse, trippy, subtle layered backwards effects
2) very sparse, brief, guitar tones appear
3) long track: very quiet start, guitar appears slow picks, after 1 min it goes quiet, like dead-air quiet, for 35 seconds, then things start to build slowly and surely, beautiful stuff, guitar sears, lulls, hypnotizes, terrorizes, mostly in bursts, statements, twangy, begins to even drone. Long but well worth it (consider starting at 1:30 because of the dead air issue)
4) long track: starts with a repeating guitar tone that sounds a lot like a ship’s or a fog horn (hence the title of this track), minimalism ensues then a sustained high note appears that evolves into a layered chimey trippiness worthy of My Bloody Valentine or FSA, ends with some fairly brutal metallic tones
5) brief track: the “ship’s horn” again, full effect, very droney, kick ass
6) very brief track, just some picking
7) more of an industrial feel, stops midway then some fairly painful high pitched tones that sound more like bowed cymbal or metal scraping, pretty much ends with 45 secs left cuz it gets so sparse and full of dead air
8) “Eruption by Eddie Van Halen”: despite the title this one starts off as above, quiet and sparse, but then with a minute left he does do a sick and twisted version of metal wankery. Strange, this guy’s been smokin’ that rope
9) one minute of pretty twangy perfect guitar

Track Listing
1. How The Weather Comes Over The Central Hillside   5. How The Weather Hits The Freighter...
2. Sagado Corazon De Jesu (First Attempt)   6. ...In The Harbor
3. Sagrado Corazon De Jesu (Second Attempt)   7. How The Engine Room Sounds
4. How A Freighter Comes Into The Harbor   8. Eruption By Eddie Van Halen
  9. How It Ends