Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
Purchasable with gift card
£8GBP or more
2LP Vinyl
Record/Vinyl + Digital Album
2LP vinyl in gatefold sleeve.
Inserts feature essay by Bradford Bailey (The Hum).
Mastered by Geoff Pesche (Abbey Road).
Transfers & Restoration by Neal Birnie.
Available as Limited Edition transparent vinyl (200 copies worldwide), and as black vinyl editions.
Includes unlimited streaming of European Primitive Guitar (1974-1987)
via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
NTS presents European Primitive Guitar, a compilation of instrumental guitar compositions, mapping out European analogues of the American Primitive Guitar movement, spearheaded by John Fahey in the 1950s.
European Primitive Guitar spans works directly influenced by and responding to Fahey’s approach to composition, alongside works by artists that arrived at similar conclusions independently. The music is, at once, both starkly traditional and contemporary.
This is no more evident than with the opening song on the compilation, Spanish guitarist Albert Giménez’s 1982 composition Conte Xinès. The song draws on numerous idioms of music - flamenco, jazz, ambient music, and guitar soli - within its shimmering arpeggios, culminating as a decidedly Spanish music that has collected the ephemera of the guitar’s travels before returning home.
The compilation also explores wider ideas around experimentalism happening in Europe during the time of this anthology. German composer Hans Reichel not only developed new ways of playing the instrument, but also new ways of building guitars - pushing the boundary of what a guitar could be and how it could sound.
Ahead of its full release, listen/download material from Maurizio Angeletti (Italy, 1983), Albert Giménez (Spain, 1982) and Peter Finger (Germany, 1974).
The physical release is accompanied by an extended essay from The Hum’s Bradford Bailey.
credits
released January 26, 2024
NTSC5
Compiled by Aaron Angell, Bruno Halper & Samuel Strang
Mastered by Geoff Pesche (Abbey Road)
Transfers & restoration by Neal Birnie
Artwork by Matthias Pichl. Design by Matthew Tremaine
Essay by Bradford Bailey
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