Last week I spent a pleasant and very blissful hour forgetting about everything going on in the world outside, just being in the moment and listening to two Bristol-based musicians improvising on acoustic steel-strung guitars. raga’merikana is a new partnership between guitarists Glenn Kimpton (a Bristol-based fingerstyle guitarist and freelance writer who is also a regular contributor at Folk Radio UK) & Paul Bradley, probably best known for alt-folk minimalists Three Cane Whale whose talents are many – a rightstrung lefthanded guitarist, bandleader, composer, triple-octave singer, improviser, sessioneer, collaborator, children’s musician and multi-instrumental livelooper-cum-raconteur).
Released as a digital album via Bandcamp, raga’merikana in mono is their first recorded excursion together, presenting improvisation in simplicity, listening, near-emptiness. Below, they each shared their thoughts on the new project and while it’s a humble venture, there is a communication that goes on at different levels throughout this recording which can be heard by a listener. There’s an intimacy in something so improvised – two musicians in spontaneous exploration. The possibilities for each piece are endless but you can’t mistake the joy that brings the two players and that’s very evident here. I’m looking forward to hearing more…and maybe a public performance at some point?
On ‘raga’merikana in mono’
Glenn Kimpton
I knew I wanted to start playing some lengthy improvised acoustic guitar pieces as a duo and Paul was the natural person to approach, him already being a friend and a brilliant improviser. The idea was straight forward, we would meet at his place to see what, if anything, would come out of it. I knew I was a bit out of my depth, so I would jump the start and Paul would start tangling his intricate lines and sounds around my steady railroad-like picking. After a couple of these sessions we began setting up one mic in the middle of the room, which Paul would leave running as we began playing. Although warty in places, there is hopefully still a certain charm to this music so simply captured. Ideally, the sessions will eventually be played to a live audience in a completely unassuming way; the meditative quality of the playing will make no demands of the listener and the gentle nature will mean that engagement is a choice. The music will be there, complete with the glorious mistakes integral to improvised playing, and then it will be gone.
Paul Bradley
raga’merikana is a humble conference of two steelstring guitarists, two men from contrasting and complementary hinterlands of The Guitar. Paul, an inveterate haunter of performance stages and recording studios since 1978 (this seeming ancientness offset by what Paul calls his ’emotional immaturity’) contrasts with Glenn, a younger player who has yet to perform in public! raga’merikana aim to correct this by gigging as soon as they can…
The sound they make is spacious, reflective, modal, humble, raga-like, gently Americana-like and always improvised. No hits, no hooks, no strategies, no career-arc. Merely the hope for sublimity of musical conversation, that most effable and down right numinous of live arts. The excitement of the unknown, but with the virtual comfort blanket of quiet, meditational, modal dialogue, between two gentle musical imaginations. They hope!
Order raga’merikana in mono via Bandcamp: https://ragamerikana.bandcamp.com/album/ragamerikana-in-mono