www.billnelson.com

I just noticed today that FANTASTIC GUITARS is now also available (herewith) as a Bandcamp download...for those of you who prefer the ghost version as opposed to the flesh & blood, or rather, plastic & paper version.

Noticed that, too.

Just started really enjoying this again! A corker.

I find that I cannot take this off my player. What can I say? I love it!

I find myself humming the tunes to myself absent mindedly lately!

I wasn’t sure whether to get this. Other guitar collaborations have IMHO overpromised and under-delivered (Knopfler/Chet Atkins, Clapton/JJ Cale). Would this just be two blokes noodling to backing tracks? Would it be too ‘jazzy’ or too ‘spikey’ (like mid-period Crimson)?

As soon as it arrived I knew from the booklet it was going to be entertaining. The booklet is more than Bill’s usual. There are photos, colour and B&W, of Bill and Reeves, with their guitars in a field, sat in Bill’s studio, and a great pair: one with Reeves standing in the foreground and Bill sat at the back to accompany a sleeve note by Reeves; the other with Bill in the foreground and Reeves in the back, to accompany Bill’s. Reeves explains how they first met. He was a big fan of Bill’s and invited him to a Tin Machine gig after which Bill told him: ‘You are quite the hooligan’ – and this sets the tone for the album: the pic on the back of the booklet shows the two of them smirking together like delinquent school kids and you know you’re in for something.

The sound is warm and gorgeous. It’s completely integrated, like a twin-guitar rock band. And the pieces are very listenable and, after a couple of plays, distinctive from each other. And they really are instrumental ‘songs’ rather than just noodles. I get the sense that some here think it isn’t challenging or ‘spikey’ enough. But I feel it’s an easy listen without being easy listening, if that makes sense. There is a sense of common endeavour and of fun being had, throughout. It’s an album that is immediately appealing but on repeated listens reveals more, like all classic rock albums.

I don’t like picking out individual tracks from Bill’s albums. But Orange Turning Blue is like walking through crystal canyons, as if someone took the middle riff from Zep’s Carouselambra, stretched it out and found a proper purpose for it.

Now I need to put Joy Through Amplification back on and see how they compare.