Various Artists — I Never Metaguitar 6

I Never Metaguitar 6 is an eighteen-track CD compilation focusing in on the more experimental/  outer edges of guitar music. It’s a decidedly varied release, which moves between the seared ‘n’ jagged, angular ‘n’ odd, moody ‘n’ strange, and daring ‘n’ brain scrambling.

The release appears on the always-consistent Vienna-based label Klanggalerie. The CD comes presented in a glossy shades of green and white coloured digipak, which takes in abstract-like shapes on its cover, and inside a short write-up about the release, as well as details of each track.

The Metaguitar series was started in 2010 and is curated and produced by respected US avant guitarist and composer Elliot Shape.  With the previous vol of the series appearing on labels such as Clean Feed & Klanggalerie.

The disc opens with clean- to- jarringly-amplified tones of “Middle Age Sun” by Andr Cholmondeley, which is sort of a crossbreed between lulling Spanish guitar, and seared experimental Latin rock. As we move on we have the haunting winding unease of “Blues For Another Time” by David Torn- that features stereo-channelled layers of reverbed tones, which are both lonesome chilling and discordantly expressive. We have the forlorn glide ‘n’ shift of Matt Wiley’s “Floorplan” which mixes backward guitar pitches and waves of thick baying blues touched chugs.

Moving onto the second half of the disc we go from Ryan Mcdermott’s “And Moreover The Face Glistened” with its swirling, spiralling ‘n’ warmly chiming guitar tones- to give a track that has a light-seared ambient quality. There’s the thickly hacking ‘n’ malevolence pitch twang of  Charles K Noyes “Nameless Rocks”. Or the bleak droning meets pluck ‘n’ saw of Toto Alvarez’s “The Ocean Inside”

I Never Metaguitar 6 is proof positive that there are still players pushing the edges/ limits of the humble guitar. And for the most part, this is a varied and consistent compilation, and I do hope there are more planned in this series, and this a defiantly made me keen to check out the early discs in the series.