The
Adachi brothers' second album will appeal to any fan of acoustic guitar music.
Ryusuke and
Source "K" Adachi may not be the flashiest instrumentalists, but they play with passion and they write intelligent songs. They share
the California Guitar Trio's taste for complex, ultra-tight compositions (and
Robert Fripp's Guitar Craft philosophy can be detected in pieces like
"Push Me into Tornado" and
"All Shades of Blues"), but they display more soul, taking the music to a rootsier level akin to fiery
flamenco. The first half of the album is somewhat labored: the shifting between original numbers (
"Back Track" is a highlight) and covers delays the listener's dive into the duo's material. The three songs covered,
Jethro Tull's
"Mother Goose" and
"Cheap Day Return" and
King Crimson's
"I Talk to the Wind," establish a filiation that was already obvious in the writing. And
Source "K" tries too hard to sing like
Greg Lake and
Ian Anderson, leaving little room for a personal take on these
prog rock classics. But the second half of the disc, especially the sequence formed by
"Erewhon," "Unknown Troops," "Spring Silky Shower Landscape," and
"Lemming," is a roller coaster of gripping instrumental songwriting and virtuosic guitar-picking. The combined influences of
Ian Anderson's
folk leanings and
John McLaughlin's
flamenco-derived
jazz fusion result in some highly original tunes well worth investigating. ~ Francois Couture
