The Empyrean

レッチリのギタリスト、ジョン・フルシャンテの渾身の最高傑作！セッション的なコラボ作品や別名義などクリエイティヴでエクスペリメンタルな驚異の6週連続リリースを経て、名作「Shadows Collide With People」以来約5年ぶりの新作。1年以上の緻密な作業で完成させた本作には、フリー、ジョニー・マー他も参加。ティム・バックリーの“Song To The Siren”のカヴァーをはじめサイケデリックな一大コンセプト・アルバムとなっている。

After lying low for a few years after a tremendous burst of activity in 2004, John Frusciante is back with another solo album, Empyrean. It starts out with a fantastic instrumental called "Before the Beginning": a great minor key guitar solo, replete with echoplexed drums that was surely inspired by "Maggot Brain." After that, it's back to the kind of introspective songs that have characterized much of his solo work. His singing is actually pretty remarkable considering his initial forays into vocals. He sounds confident and assured, even as the subject matter wrestles with dark thoughts and doubt. The songs tend to be fairly spare with guitar, electric piano, bass and drums with strings adding some lushness towards the end. Frusciante also uses the studio as an instrument a la Eno, adding cool treatments to nearly every song. Some of the songs are a bit mopey and the subject matter is often on the heavy end, but "Dark/Light" shifts gears nicely (dark to light?) where the heavy reverb and piano of "Dark" gives way to the cheesy rhythm box and falsetto vocals of "Light," which leads into a nice bass-driven coda with choir. "Enough of Me" also features Johnny Marr on guitar, and one of them turns in a really nice Robert Fripp guitar solo. "One More of Me" is just strings and electric piano with Frusciante seemingly trying to sound like Stephin Merritt. Frusciante has done a nice job of carving an identity completely separate from his main gig, and Empyrean fits nicely with his other solo albums. ~ Sean Westergaard

2004～2005年にかけての6作連続リリース以来となる、ジョン・フルシアンテのソロ・アルバム。一枚通してひとつの物語を描いたコンセプチュアルでサイケデリックな作品だが、ジョニー・マーやレッド・ホット・チリペッパーズの盟友・フリーを迎えた比較的真っ当なロック・チューンも収録されていて、個々の楽曲単位でも楽しめる充実した内容だ。ティム・バックリー“Song To The Siren”のカヴァーも収録。
bounce (C)粟野 竜二