STEVE GUNN Schallplatten & CDs

Review: The FRKWYS series from RVNG Intl returns with another interesting partnership as veteran British guitarist Mike Cooper comes together with New York-based Steve Gunn for an album based around the Fado style of blues music native to Lisbon. While the former has a background in blues guitar going back over 50 years, and is responsible for the Rayon Hula album in 2004, which translated the patterned flora of aloha shirts as looped samples of Hawaiian vibraphone player Arthur Lyman, Gunn is a former member of Kurt Vile's backing band whose successful solo career has its roots in an immersion in free jazz and psychedelia. As such they are prime candidates for the FRKWYS project and Cantos de Lisboa is an illuminating set with the seven tracks forming a compelling abstract addition to RVNG's ongoing year of excellent releases.

Review: This collaboration between the long-locked Dylanesque troubadour and the offbeat guitar virtuoso was originally released as part of Three Lobed Records' Parallelogram series and pulls off the neat trick of playing the strengths of the twin mavericks whilst also expanding their oeuvres into pastures new - largely consisting of covers of songs by the likes of Randy Newman and Tom Prine, these wayward and beguiling extrapolations veer between the gothically compelling and the psychedelically fried, yet shot through with the maverick spark and wayward charm with which each artist has become renowned.