Van Stiefel: Spirits
Panoramic

For his second outing on New Focus Recordings, this time on its Panoramic sub-label, Van Stiefel was inspired by the layered guitar instrumental albums of Les Paul, Chet Atkins, and Glen Campbell. In citing the latter two, one could be excused for thinking Spirits might reflect some kind of country-related quality, but that's hardly the case. Stiefel has instead used their recordings as a springboard for his own idiosyncratic take on the solo guitar album, which includes a liberal application of sampling, processing, and electronics. It's as personal as a project could possibly be.

Like his earlier Solaris release, Spirits is rich in texture and timbre, and its tactile dimension is especially pronounced when almost every sound originates from guitar. Stiefel possesses considerable command of the instrument, but Spirits isn't about virtuosic display as generally understood; instead, the nearly hour-long release documents a musician pursuing multiple directions and using his technical know-how in service to that. That he was able to do that in the comfort of a home recording environment also accounts for the personalized feel of the recording. To that end, his own characterization of the album's fourteen pieces as “journal entries” is fitting.

Different approaches were adopted for the pieces, some the product of cut-and-paste methods and others combining backdrops constructed from samples and guitar with real-time playing at the forefront. Not surprisingly, it's the latter group that registers more as spontaneous expressions when that live component's involved. Though Spirits downplays any direct association with those aforementioned forerunners, “King of Cups” does introduce a folk-country element via lap-slide playing, though the sounds accompanying its twang are processed textures.

Contemplative pieces such as “Solace,” “Acquiescence,” “Consequence,” and “Severance” have the feel of jazz guitar reveries, despite their having been assembled from fragments. Whereas a ghostlier quality seeps into the title track through its use of tremolo effects and ethereal sustain, the tapestry “Ground” unfolds with grace and clarity, even if five guitars were used for its construction. For the the backing track of “Memory Jug,” Stiefel stitched together samples of acoustic guitar recorded in an “oddball tuning” (his term), which he then paired with real-time electric musings, the result more akin to Eugene Chadbourne, say, than Larry Carlton.

As guitar-centric as Spirits is, samples broaden its sound in places. “Harbor,” for example, individuates itself by placing electric guitar over a base of processed piano samples, the effect ostensibly turning the piece into an imaginary duet. In other cases of convincing sleight-of-hand, “Ghost Flare” could pass for an improvisation by guitarists Kevin Kastning and Mark Wingfield, the former sporting acoustic and the latter electric, while “Jewel Tree” plays like a duet for electric guitars, with one tremolo-saturated.

September 2021