Label/Year: Destiny Records, 2017
Lineup – Cameron Mizell: guitar and effects.
After the enjoyable Negative Spaces (Destiny Records, 2016), recorded with his trio mates Brad Whiteley on keyboards and Kenneth Salters on drums, American guitarist Cameron Mizell deliberately plunges into experimental waters to explore a giddily new universe, Memory/Imagination, a solo improvisational effort that reflects on the fight for social justice in America.
Employing a geometric disposition of sonic layers to form contemplative neo-folk sceneries, the title track opens the record with dreamy tones, overlapped phrasing, and scrupulous electronics. A fine balance was achieved between the acoustic and the electric perceptions.
With the climate change in mind, the guitarist delivers “Melting” as an opaque, static exercise seated in an infinite drone whose relentless frequency serves as a pointer for extemporaneous adventures. This weird oscillation between the spacious and the spectral is felt even harder on “We’ll Find Our Way Out of This Mess”, which starts like an innocuous meditation but grows into an intimidating, feverish dream as the time passes. Somehow, the final section reminded me of the dark textures so characteristic in some of the works by the bassist Bill Laswell.
Sounding like a topsy-turvy version of “Happy Birthday”, “Toast” could play a valuable role in an eerie indie film due to its nebulous contortions. Also very cinematic and equally depicted with shades of noir, “A Turning Point”, creates a scenario dominated by delaying propagation waves, percussive tic-tacs, and jazz-blues axioms. Despite explorative, it is probably the most orthodox piece in this recording.
Mizell’s pinpoint control of the guitar is patented on “Vulnerabilities”, a sort of requiem that boasts a beautiful acoustic sonority in its intersection of effulgent fingerpicking and open chords. I can almost hear a touch of gypsy lament among the melodious, yearning folk chops. It differs from the static composure of “The View From Above”, where the guitarist counterpoints shrill-note pointillism with the shrewd work done at lower registers, letting the hope hovering in the skies.
Skillfully pairing controlled abstraction with American roots, Cameron Mizell probes new conceptions for his musical creativity, stepping on offbeat yet appetizing territories.
Grade A-
Favorite Tracks:
01 - Memory/Imagination ► 05 - Vulnerabilities ► 07 - We’ll Find Our Way Out of This Mess