The first time I heard about the album AUTECHRE GUITAR was also the first time I heard about its creator, Shane Parish. This was not a surprise considering I’m not exactly a “guitar guy,” much less a solo acoustic finger-picking style “guitar guy.” I am slightly more familiar with the work of Autechre, and the sheer audacity of the concept made me very excited to hear the result. Interpreting the duo’s challengingly slippery tones and chaotic machine music with nothing more than a single guitar and ten fingers made this my most anticipated album of the year.
In short: it’s mesmerizing. You certainly do not need to be familiar with the source material to quickly understand that Parish is not only a master of the instrument but also incredibly clever with the arrangement. Early copy for the album included the line “This record shouldn’t, strictly speaking, be possible at all.” That’s true, but it does, and we are better off for it.
Two notes:
- “Slip” contains the ambient sounds of birds chirping and a plane flying past, sounding so much like my own home recording environment that the cognitive dissonance had me questioning what I was hearing.
- Parish previously recorded a cover of Aphex Twin’s “Avril 14th,” a song I have been waking up to every weekday morning for the past 20 years or so. His interpretation is beautiful.