Textura have just posted a review of my latest EP – released through Rural Colours last month. ‘Solo Guitar Improvisation II’ is now a free download from my bandcamp page.
Read the review here or below:
“Ben Chatwin’s contribution to the Rural Colours series is a seventeen-minute solo guitar improvisation that distills many of the strengths of his Talvihorros style into a single, long-form setting. During the piece’s opening minutes, Chatwin peppers plaintive guitar figures with waves of distorted voice effects, bass rumbles, and percussive flourishes. As the material develops, the sound mass grows ever more combustible and the electric guitar fiery. There’s no sense of urgency in terms of tempo as the track unfolds at a meditative crawl, but there’s definitely dramatic portent in the crushing swell of volume and density that the elements work towards. Having escalated to the level of controlled howl by the ten-minute mark, the mass grows ever more molten as it’s pierced by the stabbing shudder and wail of the electric guitar until an eventual dénouement sets in. Though he pushes the EP’s material into an uncompromisingly raw and at times violent zone, it never becomes unlistenable or loses its fundamental coherence as an overall composition. Here as in his other recordings, Chatwin strikes an admirable balance between accessibility and experimentalism in such a way that other guitar-based sound sculptors would do well to follow his example.”
Big thanks to Ron at Textura for his continued support. More live recordings coming very soon, next time on tape – watch this space….
Buy in the UK for a mere £6.99 at Norman Records