Benji Kaplan, "Meditacoes no Violao:" Some Nylon-Stringed Guitar Magic

Can't say as I've heard nylon-stringed guitarist Benji Kaplan before I heard the release at hand today. Now that I have I shall not forget the name. Meditacoes no Violao (Circo Mistico Productions) is a full CD of his solo guitar work. He is a NYC native who became enamored with the music of the middle east, Africa and Brazil, began playing the nylon stringed classical guitar at an early age, spent time in Brazil studying the music with local masters, and then returned to the US, getting his BFA in jazz and contemporary music from the New School. Since then he has performed and sung with his own band and, as on this record, as a solo guitarist.

Meditacoes shows you how far he has come. It's a rather brilliant set of improvisations and compositions that he put together showing how he has taken on Brazilian classical and jazz-bossa-samba guitar and made it his own. He has impressive touch and feel on the guitar and his music is pretty darned ravishing. It's a guitar album guitarists will totally grok. And guitar fans will get equal pleasure.

This guy is GOOD. Hear this one!

New Gary Lucas Single "Music for the Eden Project"

There is more than one side to Gary Lucas, guitarist extraordinaire. There's the Beefheartian avant electric bluesman, the shredding bandleader, the explorer of interesting "world music" syntheses, the soundscape artist and the acoustic picking and sliding master. No doubt one could split out these different areas into further subdivisions, but that's for another day.

What is important at the moment though is that there's a new single 7" vinyl Gary Lucas solo recording Music for the Eden Project (Snakefork), and it gives you two rather delightful miniatures, both composed and performed for use in a psychedelic environmental installation put together by UK artist Paul McGowan.

Each side is devoted to one of Gary's stylistic pursuits. One side is a masterful example of the acoustic picking style Gary has so well developed, and it is melifluous while having a forward-moving, finger-picking motor thrust (try saying that fast 10 times before your bowl of Wheaties tomorrow morning). The other side is a mini-soundscape with the patented Lucas psychedelic guitar solo aided and abetted by various effects to enable Gary to do the whole piece in one shot live. Lucas music lovers will know from the various excellent releases what those two musical territories entail. The single gives you more and does not disappoint. My only quibble is that there isn't enough. I want more of this "more." But hey, it IS a single, isn't it? The limited edition release is in colored vinyl too (my copy is in green), so you get something cool to have as well as to listen to. You can grab the disk at Gary's website or go the the Snakefork Facebook page.

So who is complaining?