On Dreams Say, View, Create, Shadow Leads, Dustin Wong continues to refine his highly complex yet easily approachable excursions for instrumental guitar. Anyone concerned about the six-string’s future as a tool for sonic exploration need only tilt an ear toward Wong’s latest to have their worries salved.
If I found myself in the predicament of describing the music of Dustin Wong to a musically adventurous Rip Van Winkle, I’d probably resort to mentioning the ‘70s collaborations of Robert Fripp and Brian Eno, particularly the second, 1975’s Evening Star, and then throw in the name Steve Reich. Not that Wong sounds like a calculated combination of the three reference points. It’s really more a feeling of similar tactics and intent, specifically an intense engagement with process that results in finished music lacking in academic chilliness. This is doubly impressive in Wong’s case since his records are legitimate solo efforts; one consequence of technology’s unceasing march has been the greatly diminished need for outside assistance in creating works of his structural intricacy.
But it’s not that Wong doesn’t play well with others. Indeed, I’d also probably need mention to my long-slumbering musical inquisitor that in addition to Ecstatic Sunshine, a duo dedicated to spare, melodic guitar tangles, he was also a member of Ponytail, a Deerhoof-like quartet specializing in a brand of clamorous and highly caffeinated art-rock.
Wong’s experience with the rock dynamic is palpable in his solo work. Featuring cascades of cleanly delivered string patterns that are almost geometrical in design, Dreams Say, View, Create, Shadow Leads is an excellent example of an experimental gateway for contemporary rock’s more adventurous listeners, in a manner similar to what Fripp and Eno were doing back in the ‘70s for fans of King Crimson and Roxy Music. This is a trait he shares with another current solo guitar experimenter, Emerald’s Mark McGuire.
But if McGuire’s solo work presents a gentler (if no less progressive) alternative for folks up to their necks in the u-ground noise scene, Wong’s music feels far more linked to the precursor of math-rock, flashing moments that can recall ex-Don Caballero and current Battles guitarist Ian Williams, for example. Plus, McGuire seems more in the tradition of Terry Riley and German “Kosmische musik” than Wong’s above stated stylistic forefathers. No, it’s not all that wide a gulf, but it’s also far from splitting hairs.
Wong’s previous release, Infinite Love is a two-disc + DVD affair that while quite impressive in its conceptual gravitas (each disc starts and ends the same with different material in the middle; the DVD holds accompanying visuals) wields an ambitiousness that’s maybe not the best fit for his rock-informed ideas. The new one, his fourth record and second for Thrill Jockey, is a less grandly scaled plunge into cyclical, catchy, at times even pop-inflected creations, and its tighter if by no means modest presentation is well suited to his agreeably progressive sensibility.
For instance, one pleasant aspect of Dreams Say, View, Create, Shadow Leads is how the tracks all blend together to form one long, flowing whole. For some, this might indicate an inability or disinclination to finish what he starts, but my ear perceives this circumstance differently. 2010’s Let it Go contained ten stand-alone pieces, and while a fine record, it’s a much different (and less successful) document than Wong’s last couple. Infinite Love followed Let it Go, and while the divisions are still noticeable, both of its discs ultimately register as two distinct versions of one large work (with alternate wholes) instead of just a collection of strong but seemingly unrelated creations. On the new record, the close proximity of Wong’s motifs results in a building momentum that remains constant even when the music sharply changes direction; never does anything feel loosely tied together, and there’s nothing sloppy in his methodology of pedals, loops, and layering.
The flow of this connectivity combines extremely well with the less weighty goals of Dreams Say, View, Create, Shadow Leads. While never losing grip on its (totally contemporary) prog-like leanings, the record’s catchiness also makes it not necessarily inappropriate for cranking-up with the windows down while on a nice long spring highway drive. Because they both possess similarly designed melodic structures, a listener could potentially do the same with either of Infinite Love’s discs. And for that matter a person could blast Stockhausen’s Kontakte at a Lion’s Club picnic. But fact is Infinite Love’s intended totality (the mingling of sounds and images, the identical and contrasting aspects of the two versions) can’t help but somewhat shape its functionality for the listener/viewer; it’s difficult to avoid its intention as a conceptual record. In comparison, Dreams Say, View, Create, Shadow Leads is much closer to a pop experience.
And if the record lacks sloppiness, it’s also not clinical in its precision. In part because it still contains tangibly rock-like moments (in particular the assertiveness of the rhythms), Wong’s material here feels (more than ever) like it’s born not in a lab but in the practice space. His is surely a solo creativity, but it’s far from spare. And if it’s debatable whether his layers of sound achieve an actual dialogue, they certainly do present an overlapping, mingling array of voices.
Voices? While Wong is an instrumental artist whose music lacks for nothing that a vocalist might bring to the table, it’s still a nice surprise to hear his throat jump into the proceedings during the record’s final track, “Diagonally Talking Echo.” It shows that the bold course he’s set upon isn’t so rigid as to actually become limiting. And as a whole, Dreams Say, View, Create, Shadow Leads is simply an excellent listen, loaded with unexpected developments like the merger of Frippertronics and danceable rhythms “Purple Slipped Right,” the brittle almost-funk of “Space Tunnel Graffiti” and the mildly Battles-like “Pencil Drove Hill Moon.”
But at this point the standout portion for me is “Evening Curves Straight.” Featuring a progression that suggests a synthetic sci-fi tin-whistle and gorgeous strums of chiming, climbing guitar, the thickness of its ascending structure brings to mind the strategies of another Baltimore based sonic technician, Dan Deacon.
On Dreams Say, View, Create, Shadow Leads Dustin Wong hits upon a fine balance of the experimental and the accessible. Of course, it remains to be seen if he’ll elect to explore this path further, possibly reengage with the broader multi-media approach of Infinite Love, or develop additional options instead. Due to the achievement on display here, whatever avenue he chooses has earned my interest.
Graded on a Curve: A
