As you might expect from the title of Australian guitar whizz Darren Cross’s fourth album – Wizrad: Adventures into Ecstatic Guitar (and Madcap Ambient), there is a gentle sense of humour running through the twelve tracks, with Cross playing some killer guitar while not taking himself too seriously. This is apparent from the off, with the first sound being a recording of a neighbour having overheard Cross practising (‘It’s beautiful… I thought it was the Pied Piper’) and his mildly embarrassed gratitude.
Moving forward from last year’s Hot-wire the Lay-low, Cross has purposefully juxtaposed his intricately picked songs with woozy passages of ambience and field recordings (again, see the title), all mastered with a typically meticulous touch by arguably the new master of instrumental atmospherics (see Andrew Tuttle’s wonderful Fleeting Adventure), Chuck Johnson. Aside from the slightly awkward and comedic intro, Birdy Birdy blends and bends bird song with a dog barking to create a weird little miniature, and Pathway to the Oboe Guitarist continues the vibe with a micro-collage reminiscent of Daniel Bachman’s more recent work. Indeed, the final song, The Astral Plane, also feels akin to Bachman’s Big Ocean 0 from Axacan, with an ethereal drone sound making for a mesmeric five minutes.
There is even a touch of the unusual in some of the playing, although it is very subtle, making it more satisfying: some of the note clusters throughout Brumby Revisited bend in unison ever so slightly, either through a guitar neck tweak or digital manipulation, and it gives the tune a pinch of added flavour and shows an interest in making a different kind of instrumental guitar album.
That said, when he lets loose on a straight-up acoustic workout, the result is just as successful because Cross is a very adept guitarist who is able to take his tunes and gallop, as we see on songs like The Regicide of Daniel Ek Made no Sound (cheeky title) and A Harebrained Adventure of an Amateur Shaman (again, look at the modest and comedic words in the title). The former begins with a minor key walking beat before a sturdier guitar part kicks in and takes us off on a sonic tour of a dusty landscape full of adventure. Amateur Shaman is similar in character, with a heavy-thumbed bass line tracing a robust and complex guitar line that is happy to gather momentum as it develops. Nothing Ever Stops (On the Astral Plane) is more pensive in nature than the two above pieces and less frenetic in its picking structure, with the space from the slower tempo giving the music a more enigmatic feel. Also ambiguous is Rotterdam Hussle, one of my favourites here. Cross plays a picked guitar line akin to a klaxon, while high strings tap out subtle two or three-note runs. The tune is done in less than three minutes, but it displays a fresh and inventive approach to solo guitar playing and works very well as middle man to the more drone or field recording-centric pieces here, giving the whole album a very successful sense of cohesion. This one is a must for fans of the more experimental and adventurous side of the solo acoustic genre, as well as those who enjoy serious acoustic guitar flexing.
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