Poetry of Appliance, by The Richard Leo Johnson Trio

Poetry of Appliance

by The Richard Leo Johnson Trio

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Carsten Pieper One of the albums that really resist being easily filed (as often is the case with these great Cuneiform special offers :-) Be quick to get your digital copy this weekend!). New Age seems to be a label often related to Mr. Jonson's music but there is much more going on in his music than that term might imply. The music is soothing in places (and I never considered that to be a bad thing), but in other places quite complex and vivid.
Fascinating instrumental music! Favorite track: The Moon Is a Sky Thing.

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Compact Disc (CD) + Digital Album

Includes unlimited streaming of Poetry of Appliance via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.

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	1.	Highway 420 revisited 04:43
	2.	Charmin' Carmen/Meditation On Hymn 08:12
	3.	Her to Hymn 04:20
	4.	Glide Path 05:30
	5.	Eulogy 05:58
	6.	Haploid Springs 03:48
	7.	4 Months, 4 Days 04:25
	8.	The Moon Is a Sky Thing 07:58

about

Richard Leo Johnson is one of the most innovative and inspired acoustic guitarists on the current American music scene. Johnson’s style, characterized by complexity, exhilarating speed, and hauntingly unfamiliar harmonies created through ‘found’ tunings, marks this self-taught player apart. Richard was raised in America’s deep South, in a small Arkansas town in the Mississippi Delta. A good indication of Richard is about is captured when he recalls that his “real jumping off point” was a home-made cassette he received as a teenager, which featured The Mahavishnu Orchestra’s Inner Mounting Flame on one side, and Leo Kottke’s Greenhouse on the other; “I thought both sides were by the same artist! The initial impact was that it was somehow possible to make something happen that fused the linear liquidity of McLaughlin and the dense harmonic structure and drive of Kottke.” Practicing incessantly on his own, Johnson developed an idiosyncratic playing style which combined plucking and strumming, alternating between 6, 12, and 18 strings (a 2-necked McCullum guitar with 6 and 12 strings), using all parts of the guitar, and employing 30 tunings he devised. The Richard Leo Johnson Trio is his first ever 'band' and it fuses elements of Americana, rock, ambient and folk music with the sensibilities of classical color and structure, reflecting an eclectic, modern outlook on chamber music. With the collaboration of the classically trained and former symphony musicians Andrew Ripley (wind instruments and electronics) and Ricardo A. Ochoa (strings and theremin), Richard Leo Johnson brings a fresh new focus and additional instrumental orchestrations to his own brand of guitar-centric instrumental poetry, making for a music that is both beautiful and deep.

"Be prepared...the extraordinary Richard Leo Johnson isn't quite like any...guitarist you've ever heard before."
–Jazzwise

"Difficult to categorize...but marvelous to hear."
–All Music Guide

credits

released September 21, 2004

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Richard Leo Johnson albums available on Bandcamp:

- cuneiformrecords.bandcamp.com/album/who-knew-charlie-shoe

- cuneiformrecords.bandcamp.com/album/the-legend-of-vernon-mcalister

- cuneiformrecords.bandcamp.com/album/poetry-of-appliance

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Cuneiform Records Washington, D.C.

Cuneiform Records is a record label releasing adventurous, boundary-bursting music by artists from around the world. They have always championed an eclectic mixture of musical styles and artists and have consistently danced at the dangerous intersection where genres meet. In doing so, they have become one of the most prominent labels of New Music.

Founded in 1984.
Based in Washington D.C. ... more

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