Autechre Guitar

BILL ORCUTT GUITAR QUARTETのメンバーとしても活動する米国の技巧派ギタリストSHANE PARISHの新作は、AUTECHREのアコースティックギター・カヴァー・アルバム! AUTECHREの90年代の作品たちのメロディーを見事に捉え、TAYLOR 214E-Gアコースティック・ギターにて解釈した、大胆極まりないカヴァー。AUTECHREの輝かしい功績を振り返ると同時に、SHANE PARISHの実力を知らしめる素晴らしい企画となっています。

A musician and composer whose technical ability is matched by his prodigious range, Shane Parish has spent the previous decade adapting music across numerous disparate genres for guitar, usually solo or in some other minimalist arrangement. In the 2020s alone, he has recorded instrumental renditions of traditional maritime music, a song-for-song cover of Chet Baker Sings, and reimaginings of tracks by Aphex Twin, Captain Beefheart, Ornette Coleman, and Mr. Rogers. Add to that eclectic list 2026s Autechre Guitar, a meticulously arranged collection of songs by influential English electronic duo Autechre. Given the diversity of his own catalog, this concept isnt such a stretch for Parish, though the challenge of transcribing and performing these complex electronic pieces live on an acoustic six-string guitar is no small feat. His nimble fingerstyle readings of Autechre highlights like "Maetl," "Eggshell," and "Slip" sound like pastoral echoes of their original forms, transmuted into firelight etudes. Some tracks, like the aforementioned "Slip" and the spooky "Eutow," feel natural in their new guise, like deep cuts from the American Primitive songbook. In other places, though, Autechres sharp innovations are more intensive, both rhythmically and melodically. "Lowride" and the percussive closer "Clipper" feel a little less at home on guitar, though their apparent unease is part of what makes this album so unique. Unconventional tunings, tempos, and difficult transitions move like storm clouds across a foreign landscape, creating tension and release. Certainly, these are great songs, all of them from Autechres melodic early-90s heyday, but Parish casts them in new light with his own artistry in a unique and unexpected collaboration. ~ Timothy Monger