[Moshe]

http://www.groovevolt.com/Newswires/...re.asp?ID=2212

Legendary guitarist Peter Walker is releasing his first album in nearly four decades. His signature folk-raga, which he developed in the Greenwich Village scene of the 1960s, influenced generations of songwriters, and while A Raga For Peter Walker features four new recordings from Walker, it also includes tracks inspired by Walker from disciples of his work, including James Blackshaw, Greg Davis, Jack Rose, Thurston Moore, Steffen Basho-Junghans, and Shawn David McMillen. Walker will begin a tour with Rose in November…

[Moshe]

http://www.pitchforkmedia.com/articl...d_review/39128

http://static.pitchforkmedia.com/ima...terwalker.gif?
Peter Walker/Various
A Raga For Peter Walker
[Tompkins Square; 2006]
Rating: 7.4
http://static.pitchforkmedia.com/ima...gif?1155783511
http://static.pitchforkmedia.com/ima...gif?1155783511

Peter Walker released just two albums: 1967's Rainy Day Raga and 1969's Second Poem to Karmela or, Gypsies Are Important. Factor his limited output with his ongoing seclusion in upstate New York and the general cultural eclipse of his style-- solo, steel string acoustic guitar-- and it seemed a safe bet that he'd become a Cambridge trivia question, a forgotten musician from a vibrant musical scene now dead and gone. But the admirable Tomkins Square-- responsible for the recent reissue of albums from Harry Tausig and Robbie Basho and for the promotion of musical heirs like Jack Rose, Shawn David McMillen, James Blackshaw, and Sharron Kraus-- has stepped in to present four new compositions from Walker. Rounding out A Raga for Peter Walker are unheard tracks from his now contemporaries.
Walker once directed music for Timothy Leary's infamous "Celebrations", in which Leary would rant to an acid-drenched audience of thousands. He also played with Sandy Bull, the legendary Indian-folk fusionist, and hung around with people like Joan Baez who, by the end of the decade, would be far more famous than him. As a fixture of both the Cambridge and NYC Village scenes, Walker was, like Bull, an early devotee of Eastern musical traditions; during and especially after Rainy Day Raga, Walker studied and experimented with the sitar and other then-exotic instruments. After fading from the limelight and settling in Woodstock, he apparently studied flamenco in Spain and kept up with his craft. Here on Raga, it sounds as if he'd never left.
His 2006 playing is a marvel, halting and propulsive at once. "Day at the Fair" moves awkwardly but inexorably forward with a slow but insistent push, looping usually linear progressions around on themselves. On "Hot Fusion", his cross-eyed phrasings sound like reluctant play, strands gradually being woven together into an intricate whole. Walker has the ability to distort time with his compositions, to move forward or back as if there was no real difference.
Six Organs of Admittance's Ben Chasny is quoted in the press materials as saying "Peter Walker was actually a bigger influence on my acoustic playing than John Fahey or Robbie Basho"-- thus giving the concept for the rest of the players on the record. Disappointingly, Chasny is otherwise absent, but the gap is filled by musicians selected to pay homage in his stead: James Blackshaw, Greg Davis, Jack Rose, Thurston Moore, Shawn David McMillen, and Steffen Basho-Junghans.
Davis and Moore are the two most unlikely players here, not known as folk musicians, and, perhaps consequentially, both are utterly compelling. The former's "Truly We Dwell in Happiness" plays off a laptop, with whispers and sleigh bells imitating guitar attacks, ultimately spiraling up with dulcimer-like tones and bird trills. It's pristinely beautiful and as organic as any folk released this year. Moore, not surprisingly, takes the opposite tact: his "Dirt Raga" is a grimy, buzzing strum held in place for five long minutes, a not-so-subtle nod to the trance-like properties inherent in Eastern-influenced, fusion play. When it finishes you feel as if you'd rolled in mud.
Elsewhere, Jack Rose does a loose and meditative live version of the sequel to "Cathedral et Chartres", from last year's excellent Kensington Blues, and James Blackshaw provides a live take on his "Spiralling Skeleton Memorial". Blackshaw is a technically stunning young prodigy from the UK, and this song displays his raw ability; unlike Rose, he's yet to figure out how to make his stuff do more than just shine brightly. When he develops more of a feel for his material, and can manage the subtle variations that make Rose (and Walker) such consistently fascinating musicians, he'll be less exhausting to listen to. The German Steffen Basho-Junghans, nearly a contemporary of Walker's, pays homage with "Blue Mountain Raga"; the song's thoughtful, wide arches around its own central melody are more grandiose than Walker's, but the two musicians build using the same architecture.
Though a tribute to a near obscurity, A Raga for Peter Walker feels accessible and new-- as low-key and quality an introduction to the past, present, and future of steel string guitar as anyone could want. We're lucky to have Walker with us again; lets hope he sticks around this time.
-Zach Baron, October 25, 2006

[Tokolosh]

The goodness doesn't stop, does it? Thanks for the info Moshe.

[guitarpro]

That Thurston he's always up to something