Description
2022 repress. The long awaited repress of Slight Freedom, acclaimed guitarist & composer Jeff Parker”s first solo album & a New York Times” best albums of 2016 selection, is here. Pressed on premium 120-gram audiophile-quality vinyl by RTI from lacquers cut at sterling sound by Steve Fallone, presented in a retro flipback jacket. Second edition of 1,399 copies. What we said in 2016: “”Slight Freedom, Jeff Parker”s first ever solo record, presents the first opportunity to hear the guitarist in fully self-revealed circumstances. recorded 2013 & ”14 in the Hollywood Hills as he relocated from Chicago to Los Angeles, Parker combines the dark tonal palette & percussive attack he”s long been known for with real-time processing elements & field recordings, deftly crafting a unique world of solo guitar music — multilingual, mysterious, alive with extraordinary sonic events, with a sturdy intelligence in charge & a raw homestyle vibe. parker”s title composition sets the album”s cavernous mood. terse lines & ricocheting loops morph into a gnarly ambient section that resembles Neil Young droning out over a vg+ copy of discreet music. Parker creates a different sort of ambient space in his take on Frank Ocean”s ”Super Rich Kids”, bending the melody around a bossa nova rhythm into a moodsville tone poem. parker makes an extraordinary long-form statement out of Chad Taylor”s ”Mainz”, a piece he first recorded with Taylor & Chris Lopes on the album Bright Light In Winter. Twice the length of the trio recording, the multi-layered soliloquy finds parker leaping from the high rung to damn near orchestral heights, pushing his techniques & concepts to the breaking points. It”s one of the great solo performances you”ll hear from a musician this year. To say ”Lush Life” comes with formidable baggage is an understatement. Parker achieves instant classic status with a rendition that sounds beamed-in from a decommissioned satellite — burned out, covered in space grit, yet still formally nuanced & beautifully reflective of Strayhorn”s world-weary lyrics. twenty years into the game it”s a joy for eremite to present work by an artist who”s clearly taking his music to the next level.”” “”It”s not jazz, it”s not ambient, it”s not noise; it”s something more idiosyncratic and more personal, something only Parker could have come up with. Perhaps this is what Slight Freedom is supposed to mean: Not an anarchic exploding of rules, not the total liberation proposed by free jazz, but a steadier, stealthier path — dissolving boundaries, softening constraints, and wearing away at the edges of things until the ideas run as freely as water.“” –Philip Sherburne, Pitchfork
