"Solo" - Sandy Ewen (scatterArchive, 2023)

    Between sound art and free improvisation, Sandy Ewen stands in the tower surveying either of those factions without preference or prejudice. She is an architect by trade in addition to being an international performer and this is always reflected in the manner and proportion of the structures she develops in real time. More still, she is an experienced visual artist, painting and photographing with equal aplomb. All of this is central to her conception of performance. Unlike many of her current and prior collaborators, Ewen is exclusively non-deferential to any popular genre of music or prone to quoting those styles in her playing (e.g. playing riffs or moments of obviously predesigned motives or passages). All of this is displayed in abundance throughout her latest solo release.

     Unlike her prior solo releases, Ewen includes her speaking voice as part of the performance. When this moment initially occurred shortly into the first piece from 11/19, I was slightly in shock before realizing that this additional element was intentional. When incorporated, it seemed issued like a direct invitation to step into her creative process, speaking to an imaginary audience and explaining the tricks behind gleaning various noises of the raw air in a given moment. Not unlike a venerable professor or chef giving a demonstration to a doting group of rookie students. Ewen is more than equipped and experienced to be trusted with such a task and it would not be an overstatement to suggest that this solo album may represent just that.   

    Most of Ewen's output consists of live recordings which are self-released although that has been changing recently with work featured on notable experimental labels like Gilgongo Records (“You Win”) and Astral Spirits ("See Creatures" and "See Creatures Too"; both duo sets with Texas-based improv stalwart, Lisa Cameron) with this document joining the ranks of the Glasgow-based scatterArchive. Considering that she recorded this in a relatively empty space by herself with no edits, overdubs or specialized studio gear, the fidelity and blend is strikingly crisp and immersive to the listener. As she states in the liner notes to the album, “I can focus on what is RIGHT NOW” and it shows in her command of a given moment with the tools at hand. Further into the 11/19 segment, the soundscape shifts into a dense bevy of sustained rattles, plucks, taps and chimes and one could swear they were sitting surrounded in the center of an unpublished piece by Glenn Branca by way of Stockhausen. 11/24’s portion often felt like walking around blindfolded in glitchy jungle of tiny metal objects and even sometimes like some sort of crushed, interstellar dispatch via radio waves. My visions were numerous while taking this in if you couldn't tell. 

    It has been effectively cliched to refer to a musician with some descriptive term like "trailblazer" or "maverick" and this is even more often the case with many things featuring the electric guitar. That said, Ewen’s menagerie of nuanced and novel sounds initiates new aural realities on her instrument. The entirety of her catalog has been created using the same road-worn, hollow body instrument along with a collection of implements not limited to railroad spikes, steel wool, metal files and rods which equip her to create an infinite amount of ambient, fractured, evocative and enveloping sounds to use in performance. The final piece of Ewen's toolkit involves a stereo panning pedal going to two separate amplifiers which Ewen feeds back and forth, left to right. As a witness to her process in concert, the sum of all these elements provides an experience of listening wholly unlike any other guitar language that I’ve ever encountered. “Solo” is probably my favorite guitar album of the past several years. Buy/check it out below.