The Rocket
A picker at the gates of a new acoustic dawn, Steve Ball combines a singer-songwriter's intimate delivery with a prog-rocker's cosmological vision. These two contrasting facets of his oeuvre flow naturally from two of Ball's recent affiliations. A onetime member of Robert Fripp and the League of Crafty Guitarists, Ball is also a founder to the Seattle Guitar Circle, an instruction and performance guild for all who've taken up the fretboard as a priestly vocation. Four of the tracks on this seven song ep have lyrics. While Ball's vocals are clear and his verbal constructions focused, it is, and always will be, his quicksilver string sonatas which draw the world to him. Ball backs up his vocals with cascading streams of fat, round, fingerpicked notes. He gives breadth and punch to his compositions through occasional splashes of subdued piano and robust pulls from an ominous bowed bass. While most of his sonic world is painted in the bright tonal colors and chiming cadences of a young Alex DeGrassi, some of the nervy backup effects suggest an equally young Michael Hedges. The title track, loaded with haunting delay, is positively Fripp-ish. The final two cuts, unmentioned in the liner notes and hidden behind ten minutes of silence, are gripping studies in post-ambient chamber music. - Dave Liljengren
Product Description
This new Steve Ball CD features gentle, textural, hummable songs sung by multiple voices and arranged for 11 acoustic guitars. An unusual blend of musical influences including the League of Crafty Guitarists, Steve Reich, Simon and Garfunkle, Jonatha Brooke, and Peter Gabriel.
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