In 2023, accomplished and prolific guitarist Steve Gunn released Let the Moon Be a Planet (reviewed here), a collaborative album with minimalist pianist David Moore, where creative freedom and improvisation were at the heart of the project. The resulting music was spacious and meditative, with an experimental quality that kept it surprising without being overbearing. With Music for Writers, his first solo instrumental album, Steve envisaged this sense of space, improvisation and structure in mind, working together.
With minimal tools, just guitars, synths, and field recordings, Steve recorded these ten pieces in Brooklyn, Berlin, and Latvia, allowing the location, landscape, and natural sounds to become a part of the music and coexist alongside the guitar playing. As the title suggests, the sound is designed to instil calmness and thought, with the balance of played music, space and natural sounds blurring the line between performance and nature, or life, resulting in music that ‘listens as much as it speaks.’
The balance works beautifully, as evident in tunes like Park Entrance, which combines a leisurely picked guitar line with a swirling synthesised background and delicate chimed recordings, giving the sound a monastic, pure quality.
This purity is evident again on Cat, with a pleasing, melodic yet relaxed nylon string guitar part that passes the time alongside church bells and gentle synths. The feeling evokes a lazy, carefree summer afternoon and is neatly contrasted by Dog, another nylon piece, but one that ever so slightly introduces a sense of unease, with a lower, moodier synth line and more fragmented guitar playing. The touch is delicate and the shift in tone slight when compared to Cat, both enhancing music that is already impressive in its subtlety.
Possibly best of all is the final song, Pedvale Sunrise, a piece that grows in colour as it develops (much like a sunrise). Again, the guitar playing is at an easy tempo and sounds of an improvised nature, this time sitting forward from ringing samples set back and a steady synth drone that gradually becomes more prominent as the tune develops. There is a touch of pickup reverb on the guitar, giving it a polished timbre and allowing some extra muscle to the bass strings —a little touch that adds depth and heft to a wonderful piece.
Music for Writers showcases a side of creation that Steve Gunn began exploring on Let the Moon Be a Planet, with a lightness of touch that enhances the organic-sounding aspects of the music. The purpose behind the album was to use both played music and natural ambient sounds to create music that, as Steve puts it, ‘accompanies thought and inspires another way.’ A stripped-back toolbox allows space for a sound that is pure and meditative throughout, featuring beautiful guitar parts that transition from innocent and playful to more anxious in places. Far more than a solo guitar album, this is immersive music that invites close listening and encourages stillness and calm. It is also another indication of the versatility of this excellent musician.
Music for Writers (August 15th, 2025) Three Lobed Recordings (LPTLR165C)