For over five decades, Steve Tibbetts has been pouring his heart and soul into writing his own music since unleashing his self-titled debut nearly 50 years ago. When it comes to guitar players such as Michael Hedges, Alex Lifeson, Terje Rypdal, Frank Zappa, Kevin Kastning, Mark Wingfield, and Jimi Hendrix, Tibbetts deserves to be on that list among the guitar players in the world of jazz and experimentation music to prove that he’s among those gifted musicians.
That and his latest album Close released on the ECM label, which is his 13th studio album, is a follow-up to his 2018 release Life Of. You can feel the tension cut with a knife when it comes to his guitar playing. The Minnesota-based guitarist improvises by using drones and distorted techniques to create his own spiritual journey to find the inner self.
And to be allowed to have percussionists Marc Anderson and JT Bates on the album, they know they are on this path to be a part of Steve’s psyche unveiling its crystallised surrealism and striking arrangements in what Tibbetts himself has brought to the table.
He’s usage of the 12-string to create this mystical, forest-like boundary, in which it’s used to unveil the wonders, mystery and unveiling of eye-opening experiences to make you say, “What did he just do on this piece? Let me go back and re-play it again”. Mind you, this is my first time delving into the world of Tibbetts’ universe. And going through the Close album, is like an opened passageway, walking into the dark-like sky in the middle of your neighbourhood with its enchanting ambience, crawling down your spine.
There are the Indian-tribe vibrations which is evidential on ‘Remember’. It just gets your attention in a way that the trio has completely set up the lake-like ripples hitting the ocean beautifully before walking into the intense heat on the third part of ‘Somewhere’ where Tibbetts tackles the powering force of Fripp’s unbelievable arrangements with his electronical edge that comes with some harder effects in the groove.
You can hear the effects to create this watery-like sound Tibbetts creates on his 12-string acoustic with its folk-like punch, speaking of the spirit of Hedges’ textures on ‘We Begin’. But it’s the third part on ‘Away’ where he puts his listener in this meditated trance to focus more into the future, than reflecting on the past and present and showing what the next century will be in the years to come.
But once he goes back into the Metallic route with its post-punk and post-rock atmosphere hanging across the stars in an unexpected twist behind the fourth movement on ‘Everywhere’, all bets are off. It was completely unexpected for me in what Tibbetts himself endured before calming back down to earth once more on his acoustic instruments to show where his heart will take him.
Close feels like an open-ended book with a raw energetic touch that’ll make you feel as if you’re inside this dreamland world of contemplation. And while Tibbetts has seen what the future will bring, it is quite the visual beauty that this album is worth checking out.
