Rating: NNNN
Since the 1980s, shape-shifting Toronto guitar improviser Eric Chenaux has been swapping styles, instruments, motifs, ensembles and genres to satisfy each whim that’s taken his fancy. On his strongest solo offering to date, he satisfies that unclassifiable need for his music to be interesting and approachable.
As original as you’d expect, the compositions are of the frazzled, 5-in-the-morning variety. On quieter moments like Rest Your Daylights, soothsayer Chenaux’s restrained vocals and banjo, guitar and harp melodies play an endless game of follow the leader while Nick Fraser’s fluid drums trace circles around it all. Best of all is the clanging psychedelia of tracks like Have I Lost My Eyes, a wonderful Highland fling of a love song in which guitars become bagpipes and the glowing Celtic heart at the centre of this record explodes.
Eric Chenaux releases Sloppy Ground at Wrongbar May 29.