Although he has made two solo albums of elegantly detailed singer/songwriter folk,
James Elkington appears most often as a collaborator. The Chicago-based British musician has worked on a variety of projects with artists like
Richard Thompson,
Jeff Tweedy, and
Eleventh Dream Day and teamed up with fellow guitarist
Nathan Salsburg for a couple of instrumental duet records. He has also produced albums for American folk artists
Joan Shelley and
Jake Xerxes Fussell, but on his third solo release,
Elkington offers something looser and more cerebral than anything else in his catalog. At 29 tracks,
Me Neither is easily his most experimental outing. The double album consists entirely of guitar improvisations captured each morning in his home studio. For an artist who has previously presented his music so deliberately,
Me Neither is rather fascinating in its freewheeling energy. As a guitarist,
Elkington is naturally conversant in the kind of jazzy U.K. trad-folk of
Bert Jansch and
John Renbourn, but he also bares traces of American Primitive, indie rock, prog rock, and avant-garde in his style. That these pieces, recorded quickly and with little cohesion, were made with no intention for release is what makes them so charming. Solo acoustic etudes are strung between fractured ambient drones, blues-folk vamps, and shambling multi-tracked experiments, some barebones and others wonky with effects. If
Elkington were any less a guitarist, this all might seem underwhelming, but his imagination and natural grace carry the day. In his notes he describes this set as "music for which there was no purpose," or more favorably "library music." Whatever his intent, or lack thereof,
Me Neither is surprisingly engaging and fresh. ~ Timothy Monger
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