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James Elkington & Nathan Salsburg – All Gist (2024)
Review:
James Elkington and Nathan Salsburg are contemporary acoustic guitar heroes, and both boast an array of interesting credits ranging from eclectic solo projects and production gigs to long-term roles as sidemen. Elkington's 2023 solo set Me Neither was a sprawling, homemade anthology of guitar-based library music, while Salsburg's similarly experimental Landwerk project used loops of arcane 78 rpm records as the basis for new compositions. The two also have a long history of working together. In the 2020s, Elkington produced solo albums for both Salsburg (2021's Psalms) and his wife and collaborator, singer-songwriter Joan Shelley (2022's The Spur). All Gist is their third album of guitar duets and follows 2015's understated masterpiece Ambsace. What these two players bring to the table -- and these songs were literally arranged at Elkington's kitchen table -- is an inherent curiosity and intellect that transcend the folk idioms they come from. Elkington, who is English, plays like a natural successor to U.K. forebears like Bert Jansch and Martin Carthy, and Kentucky-based Salsburg has an almost encyclopedic knowledge of American folk music in his fingers. Together, though, they create music that feels fresh as springtime. Opener "Death Wishes to Kill" -- its title nicked from T.F Powys' strange and witty 1931 novel Unclay -- is as deft a showpiece as they've ever written, bursting with kinetic energy and a shared sense of excitement. "Numb Limbs" is similarly virtuosic, a percussive duel where each interlocking part pushes the other forward in motion. There is, of course, a range of tempos and tones here, including the poignant "Well, Well, Cornelius" and the elegant crawl of "Fears of This Nature." As on previous releases, they pepper their original compositions with traditional and unexpected offerings like the old Breton melodies of "Rule Bretagne" and an inspired cover of Neneh Cherry's 1988 hit "Buffalo Stance." Each player is incredibly talented and tasteful, but together their instincts mesh in such a way that they become a four-limbed handshake of smart, joyful song. Although their busy schedules may not converge often, when they do, it's pretty special. — by Timothy Monger on allmusic
Track List:
01 - Death Wishes to Kill
02 - Long in the Tooth Again
03 - Numb Limbs
04 - Nicest Distinction
05 - Well, Well, Cornelius
06 - Explanation Point
07 - Fears of This Nature
08 - Rule Bretagne
09 - All Gist Could Be Yours
10 - Buffalo Stance
Media Report:
Genre: acoustic, alternative folk
Origin: Louisville, Kentucky, USA
Format: FLAC
Format/Info: Free Lossless Audio Codec
Bit rate mode: Variable
Channel(s): 2 channels
Sampling rate: 44.1 KHz
Bit depth: 16 bits
Compression mode: Lossless
Writing library: libFLAC 1.2.1 (UTC 2007-09-17)
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