Re: Phil Keaggy article and looping album

[monk <monk@fuse.net>]

i haven't heard the record in question, but i have produced a record  
for phil ( and a few unreleased tracks..)  i know him to be one of  
the really most amazing musicians around.

i would tend to agree with you about him using a similar mode of  
looping.  and again, i haven't heard these tracks in particular.. but  
i have heard him take a baroque ground bass melody and play it  
backward so that it can be played properly with all the attacks going  
the wrong way and them play stuff that bach might have been proud of  
over that, add ebow melodies and volume swell textures that were   
just achingly beautiful.. and then after the show i'd ask (assuming  
he'd worked it out in advance) "hey phil what was that?" and he'd  
basically have no recollection of it.  it was just spontaneous. i  
have also heard him  sit down with an acoustic guitar in a dressing  
room and play some counterpoint (sort of late baroque meets ralph  
vaughn williams) and watched him retune the strings several steps  
(without really missing a beat) and keep playing whatever tune it was  
in a radically new tuning. again, when i asked him about it later, he  
was just improvising.

i doubt on a sonic innovation level he won't ever be able to hang  
with folks like torn (who has lots of respect for phil.. we've talked  
about a record that has both of them on it in the past...) but as a  
musician, he's almost in a league of his own.


my two cents
On Oct 9, 2006, at 6:32 AM, a k butler wrote:


ric hordinski


www.richordinski.com
www.myspace.com/monasterystudio


> I've only heard the clips, but didn't think this made it as an  
> essential looping album.
> Every track, and there are many, seems to be made in exactly the  
> same way, layering up a backing and then soloing over it, and being  
> made the same way they can hardly help but tend towards a  
> similarity of musical impression. Not that the individual tracks  
> aren't good in isolation, but to compile them all together like  
> that just creates pleasant aural wallpaper.
>
> If Phil Keaggy is famous enough to bring looping more public  
> recognition (I wouldn't know, I only heard of him here at LD) then  
> this album might create a useful reference point for some of us to  
> explain our music.
>
> andy butler
> (doesn't anyone else have an opinion?)