Mick Barr's latest album sees him take the concept of a face melting guitar solo and turning it into a multi-faceted and layered composition. There is no room here for any straightforward musical structures to provide a basis for Barr to take a solo from; instead he just goes at it without any thoughts given to easing the listener in gently. The concept of free jazz is one familiar to most but here is an example of free metal, the guitar screeching away from the pack and leaving a scorched trail behind it.
Unlike the majority of "guitarscape" albums that are out there, Barr keeps away from slow tempos and low frequencies. With Annwn he instead shreds away, layering complex guitar tracks over other equally complex tracks. The sheer amount of frenzied fret assault brings to mind images of bloodied stumps instead of fingers. The end result is something like having a dozen thrash metal guitarists thrown in a room and telling them to solo away in a given (but loosely defined) key for an indefinite amount of time. The notes are mostly along the midrange and treble end of the frequency spectrum and hit the ears like a hypodermic needle through skin.
Annwn has all the impact of any given Merzbow album—the shrill noise pierces through the room—but unlike noise in general there is a rhythmic and musical direction to the work. This makes it less of a challenge to listen to but makes it far more tiring to experience as my attention is constantly being grabbed by the musical aspects of the album. In a pure noise situation there are always times when you can switch off and rest your mind. There is no such respite here. Barr marches along a path that has been somewhat cleared by the likes of Albert Ayler and Masima Akita but he diverges from them, reaching the same location but from a different route.
This album is a long, testing listen (in a good way). There are so many layers of guitar on any given part of Annwn that it is impossible not to become disorientated when trying to focus on what a particular guitar is doing. This makes for interesting listening as each time I spin the disc there whole tracts of music that I notice that have been previously ignored in order to try and figure out what Barr is playing in the foreground. Due to this huge amount of detail, I am drawn back to Annwn despite it being a thoroughly exhausting way to spend 80 minutes.
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