***PAUL METZGER's choices in instruments involve strings and necks but he is not content to leave them in their original state. On 1300, his ninth solo album and third for Nero’s Neptune, Paul performs on modified guitar and 23-string banjo. The first of the album's two sidelong improvisations, "Meend For Shaista," displays the earliest of Paul's experiments in modification, a revamped Yamaha guitar first displayed on his 2005 debut. The instrument has evolved considerably over the last decade. The neck is now covered in fretless steel, many sympathetic strings have appeared, and a ride cymbal has been attached to the bottom. Metzger applies a percussive string technique and an unorthdox flamenco approach with his right hand, while his gliding left reveals the hidden beauty between the notes. As the piece unfolds, Paul accompanies himself on tabla while simultaneously playing the guitar; it is at times hard to believe the recording is a one-pass live improvisation made by a single player. On the second side, "Death's Other Kingdom," Paul breaks out his 23-string banjo. The banjo has extra strings added (including a zither-like spray of thirteen fanning out over the drum head), with the skin and sides of the banjo utilized for percussive effect. The piece begins with a slow-burning bowed section. Paul’s bowing has evolved from single-note glissandos into a full-neck chordal style, showing impressive strides in development and refinement. Echoes of North Indian classical music, twelve-tone music and Asian musical forms inform his work. Once the bow is set...
LP $17.75
09/04/2015
***Tombeaux, the much-anticipated new album from PAUL METZGER, marks our alchemist's third appearance on Nero's Neptune, following critically-acclaimed contributions to labels like Locust and Honest Jon's. Metzger summons the spirits of musical Appalachian forefathers, guitarist Django Reinhardt and classical sitarist Nikhil Banerjee, among others, weaving a peerless, highly individualistic music that sounds unlike anyone but himself. Metzger's playing doesn’t imitate raga structures so much as use those modal figures as a starting point. He employs dazzling, breviloquent string plucks on the main banjo strings, whilst producing rhythmic, droning textures on the cross strings of an added bridge. Some have suggested similarities to the works of John Fahey or Sandy Bull, but Metzger's modus operandi doesn't constitute a mirroring of those styles; rather, he composes and operates apart from their music, in an insular and altogether separate universe. In the process, Metzger transcends and expands the lexicon in a wholly organic manner.
LP $17.50
04/16/2013
CD $14.00
05/21/2013