Glenn Jones – The Giant Who Ate Himself and Other New Works for 6 & 12 String Guitar
Thrill Jockey – 24 August 2018
This new collection from Massachusetts based acoustic instrumentalist Glenn Jones feels very much like the final part of a trilogy that began in 2013 with My Garden State, which, like this one, was recorded in New Jersey at Laura Baird‘s studio, and continued with 2016’s Fleeting. All three albums are lessons in concision, each containing ten distinctive tracks totalling around the forty minute mark and all boasting a long piece or two among shorter tracks. In comparison, 2011’s The Wanting was an epic at over an hour long, with one tune running at eighteen minutes and many pieces containing deliberately long and slow parts with emphasis on repetition. The Wanting has to remain my favourite Jones album, mainly because it introduced me to the wonders of what is now somewhat murkily referred to as American Primitive music and those Rose and Fahey fellows, but there is no denying the craftsmanship, skill and sheer enjoyability of The Giant.
Unusually for recent Jones albums, this one contains no banjo tracks, which is a first since 2006’s Against which the Sea Continually Beats, but it does see the welcome return of the twelve-string guitar (or ten, Jones removes two thin strings), which was absent from Fleeting (Jones said ‘Portrait of Basho as a Young Dragon’ from that album was conceived as a twelve string track, but the combos further down the scale were a pain to play, so he switched it to six). One of the twelve-string tracks on here is ‘The Last Passenger Pigeon’, the longest of the bunch at just over seven minutes. This one enjoys playing around with the richer sound of the twelve-string guitar and takes its time setting up the fairly quick melody, which takes flight around two minutes in and soars. The huge highs and lows of the instrument suit this track perfectly and fully illustrate the dark emotion surrounding the story of the song, which is explained fully in the liner notes, while appreciating some of the positives taken. It is also placed nicely after the prettiest song here in ‘Everything Ends’, a piece of simple beauty and subtle melancholy that has hints of Spanish guitar to it.
It is also nice to hear Glenn picking up a slide again, particularly effective on the title track, which, employed part way through, changes the dynamic of the song one way and then back again, creating a complete piece that is undeniably Jones in its melody and mood. Apparently, it is a tribute to John Fahey, but what struck me was the C tuning and partial capo lending themselves to a particularly perky and slippery finger-picked arrangement. The slide pops up again on ‘River in the Sky’, which is, at under two minutes, the shortest track here, but perhaps Jones’ most original. For it he duets with Laura Baird, who provides slightly edgy field recordings alongside Glenn’s bottleneck zither line and slide guitar, to finish an unusually capo-less miniature, a little teaser of a track for a project that may one day materialise.
There’s plenty of travel running through these songs and one of the best of the lot is ‘From Frederick to Fredericksburg’, an ode of sorts to Jack Rose even in its being one of the first takes of the tune recorded, a process Jack was master of. Like Rose’s work, it is free from unnecessary playing and has a strong melody pinning it down before it bursts into life. Jones has demonstrated he can write a terrific travel tale many times, with pieces like ‘Across the Tappan Zee’ from My Garden State and ‘Close to the Ground’ from Fleeting being particularly rich. ‘Fredericksburg’ has a great sense of fun about it, but with enough slow notes and texture in there to provide the gently underlying sense of sadness that much of Glenn’s later work referencing Jack Rose seems to have. However, this tune rattles along nicely for the most part and cleverly evokes a slightly zany narrative taking in the open road and a meeting with an enthusiastic record collector that eventually links the song to Glenn and Jack’s super ‘Linden Avenue Stomp’ tune (those liner notes coming in handy again).
Towards the end is my favourite little melody of the lot, which arrives just under three minutes into ‘Even the Snout and the Tail’ and changes it into a little piece of innocent beauty. It’s another example of the sort of treasures that pop up throughout the running time of this album to bring a smile to the face. Another faultless and hugely enjoyable set, then, from a master storyteller still peaking.
Pre-order here: thrilljockey.com/products/the-giant-who-ate-himself-and-other-new-works-for-6-12-string-guitar
Photo Credit: Jesse Sheppard