Disquiet

The single of the week from the luvsound.org label is a three-and-a-half-minute solo guitar piece by Matthew Mullane, who intersperses lulling strums with spitfire arpeggios and intricate runs. The strums bring everything to a momentary halt, with a bluesy air that has a kind of swagger to its sway — imagine Chet Baker with an electric six-string. There is even, to borrow Jelly Roll Morton’s gift to music theory, a Spanish tinge. And between those gentle moments come rapid little note-packed moments that pierce the recording room’s echo like shrapnel tearing through silk (MP3). But it’s that silky air, not the finger-picking calisthenics, that’s the thing, an exquisite aural space that Mullane treats with respect. Titled “A-7″ the track begs the question if someone is ever truly playing solo when every note reverberates for several seconds before it even begins to fade from recognition, and several more before it fades from memory. Mullane’s lovely effort feeds on the simple truth that feedback keeps the recent past present.

By Marc Weidenbaum