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Ken Aldcroft- Vocabulary
Ken Aldcroft is a mainstay on Toronto’s improvising scene, as active a promoter and curator of shows as he is a guitarist. Vocabulary is his first disc of solo guitar improvisations. This disc’s defining characteristics are its dry, intimate mix and sense of progression. Aldcroft is expert at creating fine-grained sounds and plugging them into multi-part meditations. His self-generated loops produce some wonderfully subtle textures, such as the slowed-down distortion of “Fish Bowl.” Vocabulary is often riveting listening for the dedicated, but is occasionally marred by too-static transitions from one idea to the next in longer songs. There’s no pointless music here, though his penchant for tense, tightly plucked guitar gets a little exhausting after fifty minutes. 3/5 stars |