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Sep 07, 2018 Glenn Jones By Timothy Michalik

Glenn Jones’ music is unfeigned and reflective. His 2013 album, My Garden State, found Jones, the ringleader of Cul De Sac-a supremely underrated ‘90s instrumental group-coping with and caring for his ill mother, reflecting on existence back in his home state, New Jersey. My Garden State was a collection of straightforward, open-tuned guitar and banjo playing, intertwining, reveling in finger-plucked delicacies, and subtle melodic shifts. 2016’s Fleeting followed in many of the same footsteps of My Garden State, although omitting the deeply personal mood of the former.

Jones’ latest batch of primitive-influenced work, The Giant Who Ate Himself and Other New Works For 6 & 12 String Guitar, ditches the banjo entirely, instead focusing inward on his boundless melodies on both a six- and twelve-string guitar. The Giant Who Ate Himself finds Jones occasionally dipping his toes into new-age music, adding a droning and intuitive effect—this is what makes Jones’ music come to life, visceral in our most basic form of understanding sounds.

Jones may have learned quite a bit from the Takoma-era of primitive players—Cul De Sac even released The Epiphany of Glenn Jones in 1997, a collaboration with John Fahey—but he’s equally versed in experimental and neo-psychedelic, hence giving him the range that artists such as Steve Gunn and Cian Nugent dream about. In many ways, Jones is an elderly ancestor, a sagacious craftsman and finger style-guitar technician.

To listen to a Glenn Jones record is to stay mentally engrossed, cramming every nook and cranny of your psyche with the subtlest of melodies, ones that often feel monstrous and powerful. Jones’ attention to detail-his slight key changes, his capability of harmonizing what feels like the entire fret board-proves his natural aptitude for both primitive-style and transcendent instrumental guitar playing. The Giant Who Ate Himself is simply a pit-stop on the voyage of Glenn Jones’ wildly inventive guitar playing, a collection of recorded material that makes you as nostalgic as it does ready for the journey ahead. (www.glennjones.bandcamp.com)

Author rating: 7.5/10