The stark and uncompromising Changing Always Who Is Waving To Us album is quintessential Jordan Perry.
Perry, a guitarist who operates out of Virginia, is known for creating intricate avant-garde acoustic compositions. Yet the extended pieces on this cassette are especially impressive, since each track sounds meticulously constructed and plotted out, but were instead born out of a particularly fruitful improv session.
Throughout the album, Perry explores and tests just how far he could push the boundaries of his instrument and music itself. Passages of glitchy notes burst forth within each song, while Perry plays around with the aural texture of the strings and the uncanny sustaining tones he’s able to blend together.
On tracks like “As Our Plastic Horses Rise and Fall,” the highly unconventional artist makes unexpected leaps across his fretboard, creating unusual blue notes, rough dissonance and rumbling drones. Whatever sound he creates with his guitar, it’s not one you’d expect. Perry takes right turns when you’d think he’d be turning left, he zigs when other guitarists would zag. Just when a slight melody could be discerned, he begins to play his acoustic like it was a percussion instrument: tapping, rubbing and snapping at the strings. He even isolates various overtones at times, making his guitar ring out like a grand harp.
While the music here is complex and refreshingly outré, it’s also gorgeous in its stoic minimalism. Perry’s reverence for the qualities of quiet and subtle music, plus his close placements of sensitive microphones give this album a stunning intimacy. It truly feels as though Perry is in the room with you. You can even hear him shifting in his chair plain as day. This really pulls you inside the world of the recording.
Challenging, extraordinary and always full of surprises, Changing Always Who Is Waving To Us is a great album to just get lost inside of. You can buy this tape right now from Feeding Tube Records. Click here to get your copy today.
Record Crates United 