David Rainger

CD - The Short But Astonishing Electro-Scratch Guitar World Of David Rainger

Play 90 second soundbite of 'Tweaking' @ 'CD quality'

With a title like that you shouldn't need someone like me trying to tell you what this album is about!! However I'm gonna anyway! 'The Short But....David Rainger' is a bit of 'programmer's' heaven, I suppose; loads of short, guitar based sequences that flit in and out of genre restraints to loosely form a collective of 'Short But Astonishing...' - get it?? Always with pretty cool electro undercurrents Rainger's guitar works demonstrate great respect for all things six-stringed and electrified no matter what style or cast - from hammed-up glam-rock right through to hard-core industrial ambient Rainger finds elements to shape his fascinating snippets, loops and incidental overtures.

I suppose one way of describing this pretty cool work is by getting you to think in terms of Moby does electro-indie instrumentals; it's clever and it's captivating!! And, it could easily become a bit of a legend in its own cornflakes! This is a really good album but...! But, too many of the tracks end up being too short and sample-esque - the longer tracks have real substance and show that Rainger is a man, a guitarist, with a vivid imagination, masses of instrumental dexterity and a ear for the modernistically angular! That's good for me - I don't really do conventional, I don't get off on ordinary but, I do tingle round the tulips when I hear something that pushes at the envelope and 'The Short...Rainger' does exactly that.

So, guess what, 'The Sho..nger' is an instrumental album, no lyrics, no voices, not one! So, on that basis I'm guessing that, sadly, this will appeal to a minority audience. And that really is a shame cuz there's some great stuff in here - I can see this becoming a sort of modern-day 'Play In A Day' for budding guitarists; I can imagine loads of would-be axe-pickers listening and asking 'how does he do that' or thinking 'I'm gonna try that..!' as they slowly build up their own arsenal of guitar styles and fx based on Rainger's bizarre but intoxicating 'Electro-Scratch World'.

So, 'The Short But Astonishing Electro-Scratch Guitar World Of David Rainger' by you know who is a really good piece of work - a bit on the short side maybe, timing out at just over twenty minutes, but what little there is is very impressive and most enjoyable. Definitely one that I'll be re-visiting (guitar in hand and notebook at the ready!!) and most definitely one of the more unusual but seriously tantalising albums I've come across lately.

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