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Secret Stratosphere
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Barnes and Noble
Secret Stratosphere
Current price: $13.99
Barnes and Noble
Secret Stratosphere
Current price: $13.99
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Size: CD
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When introducing "Area Code 601," the last song of his band's set on live album
,
says "We're gonna end with kind of a
meets
number." As far-fetched and ridiculous as that pairing might seem at first, it's a surprisingly apt description of the song's energy and a good opening line for trying to describe
's psychedelic approach to traditionally informed instrumental guitar music. The Nashville native was on the road and in the studio as a session player in the years leading up to when he began releasing music under his own name, and reshaping American primitive fingerstyle guitar into something more atmospheric and sprawling.
is a superb showing of
's style in a live setting, with seven selections from across his catalog stretching out into full-on jams with the able backing of his band
. In this configuration,
's delay-heavy lead guitar is joined by pedal steel from
(who makes beautiful ambient country sounds of his own), bass from
member
, and steady rhythms from drummer
. This 2021 date in Huntsville, Alabama captures the feeling of a hot night in early summer as the band drifts through lazy jams like the 13-minute medley of
's
track "Highway Anxiety" and a spaced-out take on
's "Radioactivity." Elsewhere on the set list is the uptempo ramble "Whole New Dude," the slowly building "Gone Clear," and a reading of "I'm Gonna Live Forever (If It Kills Me)" that's more organic and direct than its studio counterpart. Throughout the set,
and his band marry their earthbound traditional styles with more intergalactic psychedelia, hitting jam band heights without ever straying too far from the red dirt of their home planet. ~ Fred Thomas