 |
Matt Hill
2006-Present
Matt Hill is a Kansas City local who plays dreamy acoustic guitar arrangements with organic and textural undertones that bring to mind the likes of John Fahey and Sandy Bull. While this music is more ethereal than those musicians, Hill still maintains a structure that builds his compositions into his own. Hill's first release combines his excellent acoustic guitar skills with a penchant for field sounds, organic recordings, sine waves and meditative rhythms that intertwine one another.
Hill has also been a contributor to Justin Wright's Expo '70 this year, including a recent tour of California this past Summer and contributing to the ever growing work of Wright's. Hill's music is a steady and rhythmic force that is comparable to many early minimalist composers and the aforementioned folk greats. Kill Shaman is happy to give this great recording a home.
See Also
Expo '70, Cantus Firmus
Press
Based out of Kansas City, Matt Hill is a solo musician and multi-instrumentalist. On his eponymous, debut CDR, released by Kill Shaman, he employs a number of methods and styles to achieve a sound that’s always minimal and, in its very best moments, darkly hypnotic.
The album, consisting of six unnamed tracks, starts with a long-winded raga. Hill repeats the same descending, spidery riff throughout the track’s entire eight minutes as gentle drones and sine waves rise and fall in and out of the mix. The track is almost more Philip Glass than John Fahey, employing repetition to sink the tune deep into the subconscious. In a surprising move, the second track forgoes raga and riffs entirely in favor of subtle drones and acoustic guitar strings gently vibrated by an unknown source.
Throughout the disc’s hour length, it becomes quite apparent that one of Hill’s greatest strengths as a musician and composer is to create varied pieces which add up to a rewarding whole. Nowhere is this more apparent than the album’s last two tracks. Track 5, perhaps the album’s standout and certainly its most upbeat, features acoustic riffing that slides from dissonant to melodic with great ease. All the while, a floor tom provides a primitive rhythm that grows louder and louder until it threatens to overtake the piece entirely. The track’s abrupt ending clears the way for the final track, which begins with washes of cymbals and occasionally strummed acoustic guitar. Empty, formless, and abstract, the track creeps to the end of the album before it parlays into a wonderfully satisfying, albeit brief, electric guitar meltdown.
From start to finish, Hill’s debut succeeds in creating an atmosphere of subtle, yet undeniable, dread. But while the sounds may be bleak, Hill showcases promising talent that should leave listeners optimistic for what’s to come. 8/10 - Foxy Digitalis, Franklin Teagle
|
