Rites and Rituals

British guitarist Ray Russell’s six-decade CV encompasses everything from James Bond soundtracks to balmy mood music, but in the late ’60s and early ’70s, he made a handful of albums that with the right exposure, could have established him as a guitar vanguardist on par with better-known contemporaries such as Sonny Sharrock, John McLaughlin, Robert Fripp and Larry Coryell. Rites and Rituals in particular is a lost classic of the period. Elements of prog, jazz-rock fusion and free jazz are all here, in near-perfect balance, with artful composed themes that give way to sensitive yet bracingly abstract improvisation. Russell’s guitarwork is arresting in its unfettered weirdness — he sounds nothing like Sharrock yet seems equally driven to use noise and amplification to blast open new sonic portals for the instrument. Imagine a midpoint between King Crimson’s Islands and Sharrock’s Black Woman and you’ll have some idea of the visionary oddity on display here.