John Schneider is back, several years after his delightful survey of guitar music by West Coast composers for Bridge, aptly titled “Just West Coast”. This new collection features more goodies in alternate tunings by Lou Harrison and Harry Partch, as well as an engaging five-minute minimalist study by Carter Scholz called Rhythmicon (for 17 justly tuned guitars), and a rather less than interesting Lament by Schneider himself, recorded with way too much ambient noise and squeaking of fingers across the frets. But that’s the only minor disappointment in an otherwise marvelous collection.
The major works here from Harrison include Scenes from Nek Chand and the lovely Plaint and Variations on “Song of Palestine”. Both show this composer in vintage “East meets West” form, and Schneider plays them beautifully as he also does the smaller numbers. He has the perfect raw-toned and laconic singing voice for Harry Partch’s strangely haunting music for voice and guitar. December 1942 and Three Intrusions especially, with poetic sources ranging from Shakespeare to Tsurayuki, come off sounding as natural and inevitable as day passes into night.
Terry Riley’s well-known Harp of New Albion rounds out this collection in commanding style, with Schneider sustaining the work’s 14-plus minutes seemingly without effort. As noted, with the strange exception of Schneider’s own piece, Bridge’s sonics are typically first class. Guitar recordings come thick and furious each month, and most are so much alike that “been there, heard that” hardly begins to describe them; but Schneider’s discs are something special, and certainly worth the wait.
