Artist: California Guitar Trio
Label: Inner Knot
Release: 2008
Rating: 4/5
California Guitar Trio took quite a long break between “White Water” (2005) and the new, fresh “Echoes” (2008). The acoustic guitar trio, who lately almost always invite bass guitar master Tony Levin to join them on stage, has seen an unexpected wave of popularity with their releases, and it just keeps growing. California Guitar Trio put out the new album through their own label, Inner Knot, so they have complete control. Unlike “White Water”, “Echoes” is made up entirely of covers.
The first part of the album (the first three tracks) is played in a higher gear, meaning fast and exuberant. The Cruel Sea (orig. The Dakotas) and especially the following Music For A Found Harmonium (orig. Penguin Cafe Orchestra) showcase the group’s trademarks: a superb harmonic interplay of guitars that fills out the sound, and the trio’s knack for coming up with witty arrangements of their own that pour the original into a totally different, new experience, in that typical, one-of-a-kind California Guitar Trio manner. The group still leans heavily on the legacy of classical music, and so they’ve set (in their own way) a piece of Beethoven’s 5th Symphony, which they rip through in a wild surf tangle, until at the end, in all the sheer speed the trio whips up, you no longer know whether you’re still in Unmei (which means “fate”) or whether CGT have already moved on to the Flight of the Bumblebee.
The album’s highlights are tucked away in its middle. First and foremost, that means the track Echoes (orig. Pink Floyd). This one song alone outweighs everything else on the album. Everything you’re looking for, you get with it. The bravura arrangement, mainly the work of Paul Richards, sounds incredibly close to the original in the intro. The guys further boosted the expressiveness of their version of the Pink Floyd classic by bringing in special instruments, woven into this thrilling, highly atmospheric puzzle. Chiefly, that means the violectra and the theremin. Of course, Echoes is cut by almost half compared to the original; the CGT version emphasizes only the track’s main motifs, with a dreamy, esoteric feel running all the way through. Richards masterfully reworks Gilmour’s lines with special effects and especially use of a slide, while Lams mostly takes over the vocal harmonies. This trio’s wit and ambition keep shining with undiminished intensity in Mike Oldfield’s classic Tubular Bells, which the guys have trimmed down in the same fashion, keeping only the most important musical elements, so their version now runs “only” a good eight minutes. Tubular Bells was certainly not as tough a nut to crack as Echoes, and it’s not nearly as interesting as Echoes either, since in the trio’s hands the monotony of the repetitions grates on the ears a bit. The other instruments are simply missing, but if they were there, the trio would lose its charm. All in all, even Tubular Bells in the trio’s hands burns with seriously impressive uniqueness.
Bohemian Rhapsody (orig. Queen) surprises with its exact copy of the original. It’s a perfect acoustic recording of the original, where the trio leans mostly on their dazzling command of the classical music tradition. The album’s big surprise is that the group decided, for the first time in their career, to use vocals on a track. For that they invited indie rock oddball Bonnie “Prince” Billy, who with his “chill out” approach gave And I Know (orig. Krokodil) a special stamp. The guitars naturally lose their dominant role the moment a vocal shows up next to them, and the trio makes “something of their own” out of it. Finally, in a similarly split-up arrangement, the guys tackle the Lynnard Skynnard classic Freebird, which they run through with a laid-back, charmingly lively reggae touch, full of sarcasm. Bonnie “Prince” Billy proves once again to be a first-rate choice for such well-tuned tricks.
The group’s new album proves that the trio is still growing and developing artistically. Once again, it’s a completely different album in their catalog. An album of nothing but covers, which, in the case of California Guitar Trio, who’ve shown with plenty of similar reworkings in the past that this stuff is in their blood, isn’t even a surprise anymore. It’s simply one more confirmation of their total uniqueness, recognizability and artistic expressiveness. The songs are restructured so distinctively that the listener actually loses the feeling of listening to covers. “Echoes” is a new album for true music connoisseurs and fans of the extravagance of pure acoustic experimentation.
Lineup
Bert Lams – acoustic guitar
Hideyo Moriya – acoustic guitar
Paul Richards – acoustic guitar
GUEST MUSICIANS:
Bonnie “Prince” Billy – vocals on tracks #8 and #9
Pat Mastelotto – oil can on track #9
Tony Levin – bass guitar, “NS Upright” on tracks #5 and #9
Kevin Ratterman – tambourine and “shaker” on track #9
Pamelia Kurstin – theremin on tracks #4 and #5
Davide Rossi – violectra on track #4
Jamie Masefield – mandolin on track #8
Tom Griesgraber – bass guitar, Chapman stick on tracks #4 and #5
Tyler Trotter – harmonica, “Fender Rhodes”, bell, “moogerfoogers” on tracks #4, #5 and #8
Production
Tyler Trotter
Track List
01. The Cruel Sea
02. Music for a Found Harmonium
03. Unmei
04. Echoes
05. Tubular Bells
06. Pastorale
07. Bohemian Rhapsody
08. And I Know
09. Freebird
Album length: 54.40
