Western Bell

Kelly Joe Phelps | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (March 17, 2009)
• Original Release Date: 2009
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Black Hen Music
• ASIN: B001PGMRC2
• Also Available in: MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 3.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #178,741 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Editorial Reviews

Kelly Joe Phelps returns with Western Bell, his eighth full-length album and first all instrumental record. All songs feature solo performances recorded live in studio. Phelps performs on 6 and 12- string guitars, and makes a long-anticipated return to lap-slide guitar. Long-hailed for his virtuosic and courageous playing, these eleven instrumentals for solo guitar are an intimate look at Phelps' inner creative and emotional world. The vast majority of the numbers are improvised on the spot and Phelps seems to deconstruct the very instrument that's carried him around the world. Playing mostly in odd tunings only the most basic elements of a 'guitar piece' remain - vibrato, the occasional alternating thumb, and the clack of a bar on a steel string. The shining black center of Western Bell is Phelps himself, sifting through the engrained muscle memory of years of playing, the record collection, the poems, women, other on-ramps. Incredibly personal, these ruminations reflect a soul busy coming to terms with its scope and parameters, past & future.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Wordless Confessions, July 4, 2009

By 

D.A.W. (West Tisbury) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Western Bell (Audio CD)

Like others, I've been a KJP fan from the start, own all his albums, and have learned to trust him when he throws you a curveball. After several more recent excursions into larger-ensemble music, here he is all alone in a studio (apparently literally alone, since he's listed as the engineer as well). You couldn't get more intimate.

This album feels like a tour of Kelly Joe Phelps's private laboratory, in his head, with his mind-guitar. Some of the sounds are strange, yes, but somehow appropriate to the melancholy tinge that infuses just about everything KJP does. I'd recommend this CD highly to the kind of open-minded person who already enjoys Tin Hat (Trio) or Rachel's.

No, it's not dinner music or easy listening. To enjoy Western Bell, imagine that you are pulled over for speeding down a back-country road in some Red State, and thrown in jail, and your cellmate is none other than Kelly Joe. On your third day of incarceration, after KJP has already told you all the stories of his crazy relatives and the people he's met over the years (in earlier albums it feels like he's doing this), he finally falls silent and just plays his guitar quietly in the corner. And from his fingers, between these old rusty strings, come more portraits of crazy aunts and suicidal cousins, maybe people in your own family. That's what this album feels like: a wordless confession that makes you want to hang on every word.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars "music is not your boiled rice", April 29, 2009

By 

warren (in front of you) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Western Bell (Audio CD)

The title of this review comes from a KJP lyric. Western Bell is a great example of what he was singing about in an earlier album.

Many people expect a certain approach and musical language when they call themselves a fan of this or a fan of that. That's cool and that's expected. I'm a fan of sincere music and KJP has done it again but outside of what people expect. He surprised everyone some years ago with earlier recordings and he's still surprising us today.

My first listen was "Oh boy, this very different and very exciting. He's gonna rattle a lot of KJP fans and radio DJs with this. However that's not his intention." My second, third, and fourth listen is "This music is becoming familiar, and now it's starting to make sense and really resonate... communicate... with me."

Fans of John Fahey, Leo Kottke's atonal music, and avant-garde instrumental music will enjoy Western Bell. Fans of KJP that are expecting more boiled rice should just relax and buy something else.

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Here we go again!!, March 24, 2009

By 

JOHNEC (Jamestown, ND USA) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Western Bell (Audio CD)

To start off I am a Real KJP fan and I expect him to throw some musicals curveballs. (and he has) I approached this recording with caution. An entire CD of solo improvised music. Daring?--not if you have seen him in concert and have been amazed at his ability to improvise both the guitar and vocal AT THE SAME TIME but...this is risky. No vocals,unfailiar sounds, and less reliance on familiar forms to improvise within. After basically a singer-songwriters album for his last outing, in spite of my familiarity with all forms of his music to date,the CD advertised accurately,--- I did not expect this. Nothing else like it in his catalog. I will continue replay this CD as I have with some of his past efforts that I did not appreciate on first listen. Why? KJP is a musical genius and he has taken me places that others have not but... is this art or self-indulgence (or are they the same thing?)