20 December 2016

RECOMMENDATION #164 - C. DIAB

C. DIAB - NO PERFECT WAVE
injazero 2016, edition of ?

"solo bowed guitar player / trumpet player / tape manipulator creates in his music something comparable to the remote and otherworldly beauty of his surroundings. He describes his work as 'Cascadian guitar music'. Where Appalachian Guitar Music has a well-known musical identity, C. Diab's elegant cello-bowed guitar compositions have a quality just as rare and powerful, captured with meditative and swooping grace. As longing and expressive as solo cello, droning as leftfield ambient music, moving as film score and cathartic as religious song. - mountainous, moody, mesmeric, and filled with breathtaking majesty." - INJAZERO

last minute 2016 wrecking ball, kinda reminds me of STEVEN R. SMITH's underappreciated CITIES (well i suppose one could argue all his stuff is underappreciated) as well as his more aggressive output as ULAAN KHOL, finding some comparison i think to SRS's magnum opus ENDING/RETURNING (best album of 2013?) and the CEREMONY trilogy, taking those exquisite cormac mccarthy soundscapes and coating them with a nice ENO-esque finish -i get a whiff of maybe the most glorious finale title track ever in "here come the warm jets"- or else trading in some of SRS's post blues drone folk flavors for a sharper dark ambient modern classical approach on a trajectory tangent to folks like SEAN MCCANN and AARON MARTIN, not afraid to dive off the deep end into some drool worthy distortion like LOST TRAIL or DEREK ROGERS (thinkin favorites INFORMAL MEDITATION and SATURATIONS) as recorded and mixed by IAN WILLIAM CRAIG - that's not another metaphor, IWC actually did record and mix this album

don't let this one fall between the cracks