(TV) around review

["Glenn Cooper" <glenncooper@austarnet.com.au>]

  BY JOHN SCHACHT

Together with fellow Television guitarist Richard Lloyd, Tom Verlaine
virtually created a new style of guitar virtuosity emphasizing texture over
technique. Verlaine's solo career has been spotty (he's simultaneously
releasing the less-impressive Songs & Other Things), but his instrumental
recordings give free range to his highly imaginative playing. Around expands
the guitar alchemy of 1992's Warm and Cool (reissued in 2005), running the
gamut from warm-toned spacescapes ("A Burned Letter"), rockabilly inflected
stomps ("Wheel Broke"), Marc Ribot-esque jazz-funk ("Rain, Sidewalk"),
calypso rhythms ("Meteor Beach") and Friends of Dean Martinez-like
slide-guitar panoramas ("The Suns Gliding!"). Created alone or with the
ex-Television drummer Billy Ficca and bassist Pat Derivaz, Around's
compositions intertwine layers of textured guitar lines that evoke a child's
cry or rocket launch with equal dexterity. There isn't a synth in earshot
but you'd never know given the vast array of tones Verlaine summons from his
instrument. Epic and elegant, playful and pastoral -- Around is an ambient
masterpiece. 4 stars



http://atlanta.creativeloafing.com/gyrobase/Content?oid=oid%3A69797
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