“Hello, darkness, my old friend“ – some thoughts on Steve Tibbetts‘ „Close“

Steve Tibbetts‘ new album is sailing stars. It is a kind of shadow play, too. The love of life, the losses. It is glowing from start to end, with two, three explosions along the way. Things can explode in quietude, too, on this haunting melange of electric and acoustic guitars with discreet and, sorry to repeat myself, „glowing“ percussion every once in a while. A thousand miles away from an old hippie‘s shangrila. Hotel California has shut its doors.

The playing of the Minneapolis-based musician is instantly recognizable: it circles around small rhythmic-harmonic sound cells with all kinds of drone sounds and finest beats— and, breathtaking, though never forgetting to breathe: the silences, the minimal zero points, the moments of nothing lasting fractions of a second or two.

„CLOSE“ is like a dark Rothko painting on fire, in purely metaphorical and sensual ways. The tracklist reads like a Samuel Beckett poem. And, in regards to these invocations, I ask myself: how can something „noir“ like this be so elevating, so heartwarming?!

And now, a mood line, and a timeline with a twist:

Pharoah Sanders has made „TAUHID“, Jan Garbarek has made „DIS“, Van Morrison has made „VEEDON FLEECE“, Julian Priester has made „LOVE, LOVE“, Julie Tippetts has made „SUNSET GLOW“, David Darling has made „CELLO“, Laurie Spiegel has made „THE EXPANDING UNIVERSE“, Arve Henriksen has made „CHIAROSCURO“, Bill Callahan has made „APOCALYPSE“, Lambchop has made „SHOWTUNES“, and Steve Tibbetts has made „CLOSE“.

Glowing affairs all of them. Honestly, this album breaks my heart.

Michael Engelbrecht, Deutschlandfunk

Steve speaking:

Steve Tibbetts: guitar, percussion, piano
Marc Anderson: percussion, gongs, handpan, loops
JT Bates: drums