Alleviation

http://www.renaud-bray.com

http://www.renaud-bray.com

*** Résumé en anglais seulement ***This is a record for guitar connoisseurs of all kinds. Last year Danish jazz guitarist Mikkel Ploug fell in love with a rare all-mahogany 1945 Gibson Banner acoustic guitar that he ran into while on tour in the US. Back home he ended up creating a whole program of new compositions on it, interweaving aspects of folk (fingerpicking), jazz, and contemporary classical styles such as minimalism. Solo acoustic guitar music has seldom sounded so tonally warm, intricately structured, and rhythmically alive as this. Much of the music also has an intimate, inward-looking quality about it that seems to hark back to the origins of folk/blues guitar as a very personal accompanist to the human voice. Some pieces are in the nature of tributes - to Ben Monder, Steve Reich, Olivier Messiaen. Some offer unusual departures from standard jazz or classical harmony, others feature sophisticated polyrhythmic explorations. All were inspired by improvising on the instrument itself, by the way it was sounding out the music. In the recording the guitar was mic'd very close to the sound hole to bring out the smallest details yet still balance its smooth, subtle highs, midrange warmth and rich bass. The 24/192 recording has been mastered to CD and limited edition 180g vinyl. Ploug has three previous releases on Songlines as co-leader and main composer of the avant chamber jazz guitar/reeds/voice trio Equilibrium.