Rootless’ fingerpicking prowess is the nucleus of his latest release, What the Truth Leaves Out, which is available today on cassette from Feeding Tube Records.
Rootless, AKA Jeremy Hurewitz, is known for combining gentle fingerstyle guitar with cosmic electronic sounds, field recordings and even indigenous instruments to create an ethereal psychedelic folk soundscape. Yet here, the Brooklyn-based musician strips away all accompaniment to bring some solid focus to his acoustic fantasias.
Across nine tracks, Hurewitz displays his extremely varied and proficient fingerpicking skills with an unrestrained looseness that suggests the entire LP may be largely improvised.
The music here ranges from mysterious Basho-like rhapsodies (like “The Naming of New Things”), rich with little Arabic flairs and blues licks, to discomforting abstract jazz wanderings (“The Hand That Nursed the Serpent”). Meanwhile, on tracks like “Mercy of Others,” you can also detect a hint of English guitarists, like Bert Jansch, seeping into the slightly dissonant jazz workouts. It’s like every sonic influence from Hurewitz’s life is being channelled through his guitar playing all at the same time. This is indeed not your grandpa’s guitar soli album.
For an intensely meditative listen that is worlds apart from most of the other solo guitar records that have come out this year, grab your copy of What the Truth Leaves Out digitally from Rootless’ Bandcamp page or on super limited edition cassette from Feeding Tube Records today.
-KH
PS: If you enjoyed the sound of this album and you live within the NJ/NYC area, come on down to Cranford, NJ to catch Rootless at our place tomorrow at 3PM! Click here for tickets and more information.
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