Sunday, November 6, 2011

Marc Ribot - Silent Movies

Genre: Experimental, Solo Guitar, Noise, Minimalist
Sounds like: Lounge Lizards, John Zorn


Marc Ribot is a weird semi-classical guitar player who switches genres enough that he's pretty hard to nail down. For anybody that's a fan of Tom Wait's stranger, "lounge band from hell" sound - a lot of that comes from this guy. He plays with a lot of other well known musicians (Elvis Costello, John Lurie) in a variety of functions and plays everything from bitchin' Cuban music to balloon-on-strings noise. I was really tempted to just do a huge link dump but those get overwhelming so I'll start with this - it's his most recent release and it sticks to him playing thin, haunting instrumental guitar songs. It's good music for a rainy day and really shows off his style. What I like is that while he's a well trained player, he knows when to settle down and go for mood too. The video I linked below isn't actually from this album but it's awesome and should be posted. It's cribbed from the Scorsese Blues documentary which was mostly full of well-known wankers covering classic blues songs in a way that would make the original artists spin in the ground at lathe-speed. Packed away on the extras disc is this video - Ribot reinterpreting Blind Willie Johnson's "Dark was the Night" and KILLING it.


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