British musician Keith Christmas is best known in the U.K. as a singer/songwriter and leader of the blues band the Weathermen. (He also played on David Bowie's Space Oddity album). Acoustica is only his eighth solo album since 1969, and his first instrumental record.
A nimble, lyrical fingerpicker, Christmas fills this CD with acoustic guitar pieces that have strong melodic backbones and busy arrangements. Christmas eschews the solo purist approach, overdubbing his six-strings into intricate webs of sound.
Multi-layered cuts like "Floating," "Dancing" and "Easy" blend virtuosity and accessibility in a way few instrumental albums do these days; the rhythmic "Inside Out" and the slide-driven "Sliding" are even better.
Christmas may not be concentrating on his singer/songwriter side much anymore, but Acoustica indicates that he's got a bright future as an instrumentalist.
For fans of: Leo Kottke, Adrian Legg, Richard Leo Johnson
This Product was added to our catalogue on Wednesday 23 May, 2012.