Nels Cline plays guitar in Wilco and has collaborated with everyone from Thurston Moore (Sonic Youth) to Jeff Parker (Tortoise) and Charlie Haden. He can do the improv jazz thing, the scawling guitar thing, and the alt country thing, and does it all very well. Coward is a solo guitar outing and I had the chance to speak with him recently so I’ll let him explain it:
“It’s a combination of rather tightly structured ideas meticulously layered, and an attempt to also, dare i say it, play with myself. There are areas where I improvised and improvised with what I improvised. I took parts that I thought were successful, so I had the luxury of cherry picking, so I tried to keep a balance between pre meditation and spontaneity. And have it all be me.”
There’s a real diversity of stye and approach here and the divide is huge, demonstrating Cline’s range not just as a guitarist but as also as an improvising composer. In short he has good ears. From the steady drone of the opening piece Epiphyllum to the more fractured, off kilter and at times electronic sounds of the 17 minute plus Onan Suite, none of the pieces sound remotely alike. I’m hearing hints Indian ragas, Badalamenti desert blues, sound art, twisted rock, electro funk boogie and all the worlds in between. The textures are incredible, and the diversity of his tones only further enable him in his desire to mix musical metaphors and genres carelessly. You can hear the freedom in his playing and it’s a joy, offering a certain flow or progression to the music, making it feel like it makes sense even if you can’t describe how it’s doing this exactly. I said this to Cline:
“I’m really glad you think it makes sense,” he laughs. “I’m not sure if I knew it was going to or not. I just recorded a bunch of stuff and tried to make sense of it later. I had the idea to let the music come out and then see. If it made no sense I was just going to just go ‘okay that’s fine it just doesn’t make sense,’ and put it out anyway.” More laughter. “Just because it made sense to me doesn’t mean it makes sense to anyone else. ”
It’s a guitar album that demonstrates the enormous possibility of a guitar in the right hands. This isn’t a series of experiments like many experimental music albums, there’s real spark, humour and playfulness here, even while it is crashing through genres and creating new ones at an alarming rate.
Bob Baker Fish
