The thought of an album consisting of a dozen guitar and lap steel improvisations would not normally set the heart afire but this one most certainly does. Marisa Anderson is obviously an ace guitarist, but rather than demonstrating hollow technical wizardry, she crafts pieces that recall everything from backwoods blues to gospel, country to rock’n’roll and make you actually want to sit down, concentrate and take them in. Opener “Drop Down” is the heaviest thing here, a chunky piece of wonderfully dirty slide that recalls Will Kimbrough, but on the rest of the album things are more subtle; delicate, thoughtful, laidback, less-is-more musings.
As a whole the album feels like an alternative soundtrack to Wim Wenders “Paris, Texas”, but individual pieces work perfectly on their own, with the subtle, jazz-cum-folk “The Night Before Last” and “First Light”, the soundtrack to an African sunrise, being the standouts. The recording is intimate, almost lo-fi, so you can hear Anderson’s fingers on the frets occasionally, which adds to the overall atmosphere of a performance in your living room. An impressive work from a proper guitar player.-AmericanaUK March 2011
