Piehead
The second release in this year's Piehead series is a stirring, evocative disc from a UK-based musician who goes by "Knowledge of Bugs." There's no way around the Greg Davis comparison for me, so I'm just going to get it out of the way: the things that work about My Way No Way are the same things that make Greg Davis' processed guitar compositions so appealing. Although there's a fair amount of digital artefact and evidence of computer manipulation of these tracks, the organic, emotive nature of the playing still shines through much to the composer's credit. It's nearly impossible to fault Tom Bugs' approach to the guitar because from the looping bits of "The Accuarian" with underlying, amplified field ambience to the percussive lurch of "Heard Through Floor" accompanied by delaying plucked guitar to the soft organ drones that close out "1 Tonne Wheel", everything maintains a consistent space without ever sounding like too much of the same thing. The one strange exception is a narrative-vocal laden track, "Endless Path" that sounds a bit like a ballad that was penned in a lush forest populated by wood elves and magical wanderers. At the end, the narrator bumps into what I picture as wise old wizard who drops the science "Your life is an endless path." The song takes some getting used to, but after repeated listens it makes a nice connection between the more traditional singer-songwriter technique and the post-modern songwriter-digital editor technique that is employed throughout. Knowledge of Bugs has presented another link in the growing chain that connects the digital world of sound design and computer recording to the time-honored tradition of a lone musician playing music because it suits him. So far this year, Piehead is 2 for 2.
The second release in this year's Piehead series is a stirring, evocative disc from a UK-based musician who goes by "Knowledge of Bugs." There's no way around the Greg Davis comparison for me, so I'm just going to get it out of the way: the things that work about My Way No Way are the same things that make Greg Davis' processed guitar compositions so appealing. Although there's a fair amount of digital artefact and evidence of computer manipulation of these tracks, the organic, emotive nature of the playing still shines through much to the composer's credit. It's nearly impossible to fault Tom Bugs' approach to the guitar because from the looping bits of "The Accuarian" with underlying, amplified field ambience to the percussive lurch of "Heard Through Floor" accompanied by delaying plucked guitar to the soft organ drones that close out "1 Tonne Wheel", everything maintains a consistent space without ever sounding like too much of the same thing. The one strange exception is a narrative-vocal laden track, "Endless Path" that sounds a bit like a ballad that was penned in a lush forest populated by wood elves and magical wanderers. At the end, the narrator bumps into what I picture as wise old wizard who drops the science "Your life is an endless path." The song takes some getting used to, but after repeated listens it makes a nice connection between the more traditional singer-songwriter technique and the post-modern songwriter-digital editor technique that is employed throughout. Knowledge of Bugs has presented another link in the growing chain that connects the digital world of sound design and computer recording to the time-honored tradition of a lone musician playing music because it suits him. So far this year, Piehead is 2 for 2.samples:
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