Excellent
03/22/2001
(4 out of 5 stars)
"In the late '60s, the old parable goes, Brian Eno was in a car accident which caused him to be laid up for some time with a broken leg. During this time, a friend dropped by for a visit but didn't leave before putting the stereo on for the immobilized Eno, and, as it happened, setting the volume too low for proper audition. Thus began Eno's conceptual oddyssey into ambient music, blah blah blah. Similarly, "Inside" was recorded by SBJ after a gruelling bout with carpel tunnel syndrome forced him to adapt his playing style. With that as a guiding limitation, the minimalist tendencies of "Song of the Earth" on "Inside" predominate. This is some of the most alien-sounding music I've heard in a long time; the fact that it was performed in real-time on nothing but a steel-string guitar makes it all the more fascinating (although that's ultimately academic). But also, and uncannily, it's deeply emotional music, a forceful, insistent yearning propelled through a lattice of cycling hammer-ons and ringing harmonics."