Fretwork and Filigree : Playlist

I love guitar music more than almost anything and it seems that we’re in something of a heyday for it. Here are a handful of my favorites, some new, some from a few years ago now, all thoughtfully sequenced. Whether it’s the rich, full warmth of solo guitar songs, or electrified, cranial improvisational jams; cinematic and sweeping or simple and sweet, it never gets old for me.

Things start out a bit bluegrassish, get spacey and fuzzed out real quick, and then culminate in an acoustic-based, lush finale. All inventive, masterful players and writers throughout.

Fretwork is a decorative art, a form of woodworking where the artist patiently creates lacey, complex patterns from rough and raw materials – which is also what these guitar songs do – simple tools to create interlaced, ornamental works of beauty.

All songs are from my Bandcamp collection with the exception of the final track which is exclusively available from Cafe OTO.

Bill Mackay & Nathan Bowles – Joyride (Drag City)
Josh Kimbrough – Booker Creek Ripple (Tompkins Square)
Courtney Hartman – Cumberland Gap
William Tyler – Highway Anxiety (Merge)
Circles Around The Sun – Space Wheel (session mix)
Elkhorn- Storm Sessions Electric Two Part A (Beyond Beyond is Beyond)
Elkhorn – Storm Sessions Electric Two part B (Beyond Beyond is Beyond)
Prana Crafter – Mycorhizzal Brainstrom (Sunrise Ocean Bender/Cardinal Fuzz)
The Modern Folk – Bear Fence Mountain (Eiderdown Records)
Adeline Hotel – Homemade Lemonade (Ruination Records)
Son of Buzzi – Ein Baum Tanzt (Fire is Free)
Yasmin Williams – Juvenescence (Spinster Sounds)
James Elkington and Nathan Salsburg – Up of Stairs (Paradise of Bachelors)
John Lee Shannon – Glasserie (Tompkins Square)
Buck Curran – Summer Street (Obsolete Recordings)
Marisa Anderson – Cloud Corner (Thrill Jockey)
Cameron Knowler & Eli Winter – Strawberry Milk (American Dreams)
Steve Gunn – Spring in Brooklyn I (Cafe OTO)