Since making his solo debut back in 2004 Glenn Jones has been steadily adding to his rep as a prime exponent of American Primitive guitar. In 2013 he attained a seemingly unsurpassable peak with My Garden State, but his latest offers ten tracks nearly equaling the prior album’s sustained brilliance and completing an exceptional trio of full-lengths for Thrill Jockey. Fleeting continues to detail the sterling technique and deep subject matter situating Jones as the go-to guy for folks passionate over the sounds of Fahey/Takoma, and it’s out on LP/CD/digital March 18. My Garden State and 2011’s The Wanting will be given fresh vinyl pressings later this year.
The American Primitive school exemplifies the intersection of beauty and intensity at the locus of heightened skill, but the genre can additionally cultivate personal expressiveness rare in the realms of instrumental music. For decades now the best of this subtly unorthodox fingerpicking style has begun with the work of John Fahey, branched out into his rough contemporaries Robbie Basho, Leo Kottke, and Peter Lang, and extended to a handful of later generation torchbearers (and beyond US borders) to include such names as James Blackshaw, the late Jack Rose, and the topic of this review.
Blackshaw and Cian Nugent are guitarists that emerged in unabashed American Primitive mode only to stretch out into live film accompaniment and the durable singer-songwriter approach, but Glenn Jones has traveled an opposite path, beginning his recording career in an experimental-rock region via the Boston acts Shut Up and the oft-lauded Cul de Sac.
ECIM, Cul de Sac’s impressive ’91 debut, did wield a cover of “The Portland Cement Factory at Monolith, California” from Fahey’s Days Have Gone By; it underlined Jones’ relationship to the tradition early on, and six years later the association was bolstered through direct collaboration with Fahey on The Epiphany of Glenn Jones.
2004 brought Cul de Sac’s final album, Abhayamudra teaming them with Can’s Damo Suzuki, and Jones stepped into the solo guitar arena the same year with This Is the Wind That Blows It Out. It placed him squarely in the post-Fahey zone and commenced a highly worthwhile three record run for the Strange Attractors Audio House; Against Which the Sea Continually Beats arrived in ’07 and Barbeque Bob in Fishtown followed in ’09.
2011 announced a move to Thrill Jockey as Jones’ utter lack of hang-ups over being branded as a conduit of the American Primitive allowed him to grapple very nicely with the sort of expansiveness found on Fahey’s two discs for Vanguard; The Wanting welcomed the contribution of powerhouse drummer Chris Corsano, and My Garden State featured Meg and Laura Baird on guitar and banjo respectively; the latter sister served as recording engineer.
She returns in that capacity for Fleeting as Jones has chosen to cut his latest work in a house on the banks of the Rancocas Creek in Mt. Holly, New Jersey. Rather than wander from the paradigm he further develops ideas and concepts established on My Garden State but wisely doesn’t attempt to surpass the masterful combination of ambition, warmth and modesty that shaped his previous effort.
Instead, Jones has simply persisted in navigating a personal course and deepening his music’s regional flavor as the selections touch upon topics meaningful to his vision yet relatable to a substantial audience; if not quite as remarkable as its predecessor Fleeting is still an unusually successful follow-up to a career highpoint.
“Flower Turned Inside-Out” is a generous helping of six-string dexterity, its ambiance simultaneously pretty and intense, Jones’ melody carrying the torch of John Hurt as passed by Fahey and enveloping it with fingerpicked dissonance; both fluid and thorny, the result once again reinforces the American Primitive fount as far from exhausted and begins the LP on a sturdy, non-grandiose note.
And speaking of the discordant, the element is an important component in the multifaceted early standout “In Durance Vile.” Initially conceived to accompany three poems by the abstract painter Wassily Kandinsky, the track recalls Ry Cooder as the passages of quiet and Baird’s unfiltered recording method capture the sound of chirping birds in the background.
No less intimate an affair than My Garden State, Jones imbues Fleeting with distinctive attributes, particularly a pair of short banjo numbers, “Cléo Awake” and “Cléo Asleep,” that were inspired by the newborn child of friends. Sharing a melody, the moods evoked are tangibly different as Jones employs a mute for the second; it lands in the sequence’s penultimate spot.
The amiable “Mother’s Day” might immediately bring Fahey’s less edgy ’80s material for Takoma and Varrick to mind, but deeper inspection reveals melodies with perhaps a slight shade of Cooder (think Paris, Texas sans slide) that ultimately belong to Jones. By contrast “Gone Before” is tenser and also terser, his tunings reinforcing a sense of creative restlessness in a largely congenial atmosphere.
The rich melody elevates banjo centerpiece “Spokane River Falls” as the sound of flowing water at its conclusion accentuates the engagement with the natural environment, an aspect retained from My Garden State. And “Portrait of Basho as Young Dragon” partakes in homage, a familiar gesture in American Primitive circles, tipping the cap to Guitar Soli forebear Robbie Basho and lending warmth to the record’s whole.
“Close to the Ground” emits a catchy scenario with a hint of blues and intertwines the motif with steady rhythmic counterpoint; it’s a reliable maneuver that in this artist’s example never grows tired. “June Too Soon, October All Over,” delivers Fleeting its finale as lavish picking mingles with the gradually rising aura of field insects. It and the set’s opener bookend extremely well; minus strain or undue fanfare Glenn Jones is asserted as the reigning master of the American Primitive.
GRADED ON A CURVE:
A
