Author: Aleš Podbrežnik
Artist: Aug, Jeff
Label: Maximum Booking
Release: 2016
Rating: 4/5
One man, one instrument, one musical statement. Almost thirty years of musical experience, work across different corners of the music world, and a pile of gigs played. That’s Jeff Aug, an American musician originally from Washington D.C.
First and foremost, Jeff Aug is an outstanding guitarist. He’s a seasoned, battle-tested player and, like I said, he’s constantly on the road. Over his career he has opened for some highly respected names, among them, to pick out just the most »essential« ones: Allan Holdsworth, Soft Machine, Johnny A., Albert Lee, and on his current European tour in October this year, Stu Hamm Band feat. Greg Howe. And that’s not all. Jeff Aug also boasts a record all his own. In a single day he opened nine different shows »in one go« in nine different countries (Luxembourg, Belgium, Germany, the Netherlands, Liechtenstein, Austria, France, Italy and Switzerland), which earned him a Guinness Book of Records certificate in March 2012. Jeff, who has lived in Europe permanently since 1998, to be precise on the edge of the Alpine peaks of southern Germany, started his career back in the nineties in the bands Floating Stone and Sorry About Your Daughter. He put out two studio albums with the latter, and at the same time began recording his own solo material, which in the nineties alone added up to three solo studio albums. The fourth, titled »Living Room Sessions«, came out in 2009, and the latest, »Wedding Song«, in 2012.
This year Jeff also released a live album titled »Live in Europe 2016«. The live recordings captured on it come from Jeff’s European shows in January and February 2016. Brought together on one release, from different stages, they present this musician as an absolute one-off of »fingerstyle« guitar playing.
The material on this live recording is entirely original, and at these shows Jeff mostly focused on tracks from the still-current latest of his solo studio albums, »Wedding Song«, which came out in 2012.
Jeff is a multilayered, finely sculpted musician. The sheer shape of these thirteen original tracks proves it, as they swing across genres, working in elements of world music, neo-classical, country, funk and blues too. Throughout it’s easy to catch an incredible flow of emotion, which Jeff passionately and boldly coaxes out of his folk guitar and uses to tease and talk straight to the listener the whole way through. His playing builds an unbelievable dynamic as he strings together moods through a gradual build-up of atmospheres. They surge like waves. In one passage Jeff can be rough, his right hand literally digging into the strings, and in the very next moment he cools things right down with a soft run of sweet sounds, the kind that only the refined sensitivity of handling an acoustic guitar can summon. These shifts of intuitive, almost meditative flirting with the instrument are set against escalations of unbridled climbing decibels and groove coming off the strings, and wild tempo-dictating that colors the expressive reach of the songs.
If you’re a fan of authentic guitar tone, the kind only an acoustic’s response can evoke, can’t stand the kitsch and glitter of »hiding« behind distortion effects, and look for the raw, elemental delivery of feeling and passion in instrumental music, then Jeff Aug is an artist you absolutely have to get to know and dig into. A more authentic window into this artist’s musical story is almost impossible to find than the one you get from listening to this live release.
Line-up
Jeff Aug – acoustic guitar
Production
Jeff Aug
Track list
1, Introduction to Wedding Song (00:58)
2. Wedding Song (02:02)
3. Wandering the Unknown (03:45)
4. Dead Tuna Boogie (02:21)
5. Edible Enema (03:19)
6. Amsterdam Story (01:47)
7. Amsterdam (02:42)
8. Skyway to Cairo (01:58)
9. Listen Up, Jazzhole! (01:58)
10. Fuck the Neighbors (02:25)
11. Lullabye (02:46)
12. Dolphinwave (03:57)
13.Lightness (3:16)
