Chromefly - Modern Guitar Music 2

Hear The Track Here

The Chromefly a.k.a King Ebow aka John Ellis asked me through the Rebel Riffs blog to cast my ears his way to listen to a seven track project entitled Modern Guitar Music 2. My immediate thought was, where have I heard that before? (Modern Guitar music, as it were) Well, kind of everywhere because almost all the PR blurbs I get (and I get a fair few) are always banging on about this modern guitar sound and it's all the same bollocks innit? Well yes, generally that is the case but - once in a blue moon - you actually DO get a guitarist who can truly lay claim to such a laudable title. That is where John Ellis comes in.

OK first off, you are obviously going to be into instrumentals in general, and guitar ones specifically, and lets face it it is not going to be a large audience, is it? You, me and that guy standing with his hands in his pockets even. Still, I am a guitarist so I am bound to appreciate someone else's playing, but will yer ordinary punter (Ed: listener, Gilmore, listener) get it. Actually, if you take this seven tracks as a good starting point then I'd say a qualified yes because the collection of tracks is extremely listenable in pretty much all the things that count (and I defy you to stay still through Sly Guitar!)

Doesn't seem like much in these jaded and cynical times but when Mike Oldfield first brought out Tubular Bells, it was considered highly revolutionary - because it was exactly what John has done with Modern Guitar Music. Every part hand-crafted by him into a coherent whole, none of which would helped in the slightest if the prime ingredient (good ideas) wasn't present. Each of the tracks has a distinctly different sound and style but surprisingly enough it all works when streamed in one go - probably better than listening to each track in turn because it seemed to make more sense to me that way. As a final arbiter of taste, the man even plays a Takamine...

Highly Recommended Modern Guitar music.