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Glenn Jones
This is the Wind that Blows it Out-
Solos for 6 & 12 String Guitar
SAAH024 CD Only
Released: July 6, 2004
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Track Listing: This is the Wind that Blows it Out - Sphinx Unto Curious Men - Friday Nights With - Fahey's Car - The Doll Hospital - Linden Avenue Stomp - Nora's Leather Jacket - One Jack Rose (That I Mean)

Most folks know Glenn Jones as guitarist extraordinaire for Cul de Sac, in which his idiosyncratic blend of surf, Middle Eastern, Americana and acid guitar innovations are a signature of the band's much-ballyhooed sound. Across the better part of a decade, electric guitar (and the effects hybrid of his own creation, The Contraption) has been Jones' weapon of choice, but few people are aware that long before Cul de Sac was born, Jones played the acoustic guitar exclusively for many years. From the time his father bought him his first axe at age 14, Jones never even picked up an electric until the wave of punk rock broke over his consciousness at the ripe age of 29. Although eventually seduced by electricity, Jones never escaped his roots. A scholar of sorts of the acoustic steel string tradition, Jones has written extensively on the subject, as can be found in the wave of Robbie Basho and John Fahey reissues on Fantasy (not to mention the great essay on Fahey that accompanies his final album, Red Cross). Jones befriended his idol John Fahey in the mid-70's, eventually collaborating with him via Cul de Sac (The Epiphany of Glenn Jones, Thirsty Ear 1996). Upon Fahey's passing in 2001, Jones went back to the acoustic guitar with renewed earnest, hints of which can be found inoculating Cul de Sac's 2003 masterpiece Death of the Sun and their soundtrack album, The Strangler's Wife. At long-last, the time is nigh for Jones to release his debut solo album. This is the Wind That Blows it Out - Solos for 6 & 12 String Guitar is a collection of stylistically ambitious, utterly sublime acoustic steel-string compositions, proving beyond a shred of doubt that Jones is of a rare class of modern compositional guitarists in today's burgeoning avant folk scene.

In the spirit of the great Takoma Records releases of the 60's and early 70's, This is the Wind that Blows it Out winds its way through rich expanses of varied stylistic terrain, charting a rich and unique course. "American Primitive" folk and blues, Spanish guitar, slack-key, rustic Mississippi Delta slide and classical forms cozy up fluently to one another, sometimes within the same tune. Glenn Jones' fingerstyle and slide technique is on dazzling display, guiding the music across scenic vistas of mood and color. Opening with the title tune, "This is the Wind that Blows it Out" meanders with heady grace, "Delta-delica" slide guitar as intoxicating as it is mournful. "Sphinx Unto Curious Men" is the complete version of "Second Victim?", originally found in truncated form on The Strangler's Wife; here the opening eerie fingerpicking passage turns a corner into elegant and airy rooms of lyrical décor only to come back again, balancing the angelic with the ominous. "Fahey's Car" bounces and shimmers like some of Peter Lang's classic Takoma sides, and "Linden Avenue Stomp" is an alternate take of a old-timey duet with Jack Rose, originally found on his Opium Musick LP (reissued on the Two Originals of Jack Rose CD on VHF Records). Perhaps most profoundly, Jones is able to coax strong melodies and hooks from the oft-complex, stylistically amorphous compositions - a couple of spins of This is the Wind that Blows it Out, and you will have tunes dancing through your head for days.

As interest in the old guard of steel-string innovators John Fahey, Robbie Basho, Leo Kottke and Peter Lang has been renewed with earnest, a new fraternity of Guitar Soli tunesmiths has come to the fore - Steffen Basho-Junghans, Jack Rose, Harris Newman and Glenn Jones. Along with his guitar-slinging brethren, Jones steps out of the long shadow cast by the Takoma stable and offers up "A New Possibility". This is the Wind that Blows it Out is a fantastic entry into today's simmering free folk movement, a debut album by a singular guitarist who, by way of Cul de Sac, has already turned avant rock on its collective head. Now his sights are set on the contemporary solo steel-string underground. Behold, for this is the New Folk Now Sound.

***
Hear for yourself! Download a free MP3 of "Fahey's Car", from This is the Wind that Blows it Out
Glenn Jones unofficial webpage here
For related information, head to the Cul de Sac homepage
Glenn Jones was the subject of The Wire's "Invisible Jukebox", January 2005!
Press: All Music Guide, The Wire, Dusted Magazine, Boston Phoenix / Providence Phoenix, Baltimore City Paper, Aural Innovations, Plan B Magazine, Foxy Digitalis, Fac193, Psychedelic Folk, Groove.No, Rock Obrobje, Brainwashed, Jambase, Fakejazz, Performermag, Monterrey County Weekly, Skyscraper
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