Three compositions by Sugimoto, two for solo guitar, one for guitar trio, performed by Andrey Popovsky, Denis Sorokin, and Alexander Markvart. The disc includes detailed notes on the piece by Sugimoto, especially involving tunings.
Of Sugimoto's compositional works over the last couple of decades, these surely number among the most approachable. As unusual as the tunings may be, the resultant readings, at least by these three guitarists, feature clearly struck notes that are more or less tonal, follow in quasi-scalar patterns and are deployed in small groups with fairly regular, if very slow, rhythms. 'solo for guitar 2', has a microtonal feel to it and proceeds at a slow, steady walk, as though carefully contemplating its surroundings. Static but very alive, it's a gem of a work. 'trio (for three guitars)' uses, at the composers request, one each of acoustic, "semi-acoustic" and classical guitars, all tuned differently. The sense isn't so dissimilar from the preceding work except that the feeling of "three" is there, a kind of slow round passed between the players, the timbre of the instruments also not so far apart.
'solo for guitar 1', with Sorokin on electric, is a beast of a somewhat different character. For about half the piece, the pace, while by no means fast, is a bit quicker than before, the notes louder (not loud) and containing a degree of burr; they're clear, but there's an un-sanded aspect to them, very attractive. It's laid out in several discreet sections, each a few minutes long, each having a differing but related aspect. The tones, in groups of four, five, eight, etc., are again presented with a regular cadence but the timbre and tonality shifts a bit between sections and the tempo shifts slightly as well, Not "static" like the other works, more a series of static pictures taken along a walk that only varied a bit along its length, but those variations have become important and beautiful. After an extra-long stretch of silence, the composition resumes at a slower pace, much more like the first track, but the notes often carry an electric shimmer that was necessarily absent earlier.
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