benchmark
this was belew's first serious solo attempt, and his last for many years. it's also a record of quite subtle merits, but revolutionary in it's own sphere.
there's a lot of accusations one could honestly level at belew on this, without the need for much of an argument or the production of much dissent. does he really know how to write tangos or "gypsy music"? does he know anything of substance about the impressionism and serialism he's leaning towards? well, it's rather apparent that he doesn't, really. he consequently falls into a number of clichés in the process of being pretentious about the whole thing. the reality is that he doesn't have a phd in ethnomusicology and it very much shows.
so, he's not al di meola.
....but if you want a di meola disc, there are plenty to choose from. this is a different animal altogether, in the sense that it is apparently entirely synthesized. if you've flipped on a synth, you know how this works. you start by perusing the preset banks for a bit, pushing a few keys and just kind of jamming. when you get to the last preset bank, you're presented with a series of instruments you've never heard of before. you think "gee. what's an ocarina?", as you hack some asian sounding thing out. within twenty minutes, you've got the board split to gongs on the bottom half (which you're mashing with your palm) and a synthesized wind chime on the other, and you're pretending as though you know what it would feel like to discover a pristine, untouched lake on the china/tibet border...
after an hour or so, the guy that owns the store hits you with a mallet and you snap out of it. it was fun while it lasted...
....you certainly never contemplate releasing what you just did on island records, then expecting it to sell more than ten copies. note that this disc is currently many years out of print.
so, it's easy to deduce that this is how a lot of the non-western sounds found their way into this: simple curiosity spurred on by playing with the presets on a synthesizer. yet, the sound on this record isn't being produced by a traditional keyboard synthesizer. rather, it's being produced by a cutting edge roland guitar synthesizer. for that reason, i'm very much willing to forgive the pretension. see, it's what the record is: a self-taught, abstract guitarist playing around with a toy that wasn't just new to him, but pretty much new to the world. if you remove a handful of words from the title tracks, what you're left with is music that sounds like it came from nowhere on this planet at all.
that's not to say that the songs are badly constructed. the clichés are at times heavy-handed, but the record is stronger for them. take the third track, for instance. it sounds exactly like a self-taught guitarist pretending he knows how to write ethnic roma music, which is precisely what it is. yet, breaking through the pretension produces a bizarre jam that stands up well on it's own, when taken out of that context. i mean, i wouldn't have otherwise thought to think that. the second track combines circus music with a standard blues progression, all through a haze of synthesized guitar work, in a way that leaves you scratching your head and wondering what you just listened to. so, stripping out the hackneyed attempt at ethnic music would deny the record of it's charm and leave what is yet another experiment in frippertronics. that doesn't mean that the hackneyed attempt at ethnic music needs to be interpreted as ethnic music at all; rather, it's nature as a hackneyed attempt makes it very easy to completely ignore. a more substantial criticism is that the tracks are obviously mostly improvised, and might be perceived to meander a little. yet, that meandering can also be perceived as comprehensively exploring the synth tones. i don't personally find that it drags, but i realize that my own bias on the point (being a fan of abstract guitar music) is likely substantial.
the result is admittedly a record that is defined more by the tools used to create it than by the notes within it; insofar as it is the latter rather than the former, it's a substantial piece of music in a historical context. this is the sole reason i'm grading it as highly as i am. the last point is really central: i am a fan of abstract guitar music. if you are not, this might not be for you. if you are, you'll likely at least appreciate the record as carving out a unique space in the spectrum of guitar music. no, it may not excel as a conventional piece of music in much of any way, but as an unconventional piece of music it's not really convincingly comparable to anything else i've ever heard. that makes it something to isolate as unique and still potentially genre-defining, as well as an essential record to explore - if not an essential record to love.
stream:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_mpb8sKnQAZ8yQ8ZEuMGji1pNwXFR8l6_o
http://dghjdfsghkrdghdgja.appspot.com/categories/music/artists/AdrianBelew/1986-DesireCaughtByTheTail/index.html
