Guitar cover
Released

Sonny Sharrock had effectively walked away from the music industry after 1975’s funk-fusion Paradise stiffed commercially. But producer Bill Laswell, a longtime fan, lured him back, first as a guest on Material’s Memory Serves in 1981 and then as a member of Last Exit with Peter Brötzmann, Laswell, and Ronald Shannon Jackson beginning in 1986. That same year, Sharrock and Laswell went into New York’s RPM Sound and made Guitar. Sharrock lays down simple melodies and repetitive, looping grooves, over which he solos in a variety of styles including caveman blues and rock ’n’ roll, skronky prog-fusion, and raw noise. Laswell doesn’t do much but add a little reverb, giving the music a floating, atmospheric quality that emphasizes the beauty at its heart. “Blind Willie,” “Black Bottom” and “Kula-Mae” are the best kind of primitivism, while “Broken Toys” is a heartbreaking ballad and the closing four-part “Princess Sonata” builds a bridge between jazz guitar and the warped, ecstatic outbursts of peak-era Sonic Youth

Phil Freeman

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