Gregg Belisle-Chi
Book of Hours
ears&eyes Records
When he lived in Seattle, guitarist/ composer Gregg Belisle-Chi was an intriguingly iconoclastic presence on the creative music scene, contributing his nimbly distinctive guitar playing and deeply challenging writing to a broad range of music. Since his move to New York, Belisle-Chi has been attracting attention and praise from fellow guitar iconoclasts (and former influences) such as Ben Monder and Steve Cardenas. The move East has also inspired a creative expansion for Belisle-Chi, well-documented on his superb new album, Book of Hours.
Belisle-Chi has an intuitive and open-minded aesthetic, and though Monder and others in the modern guitar realm may serve as influences and guideposts, Belisle- Chi clearly is not chasing trends or hipster jazz tropes. His excellent debut, Tenebrae and equally impressive sophomore effort, I Sang to You and the Moon shared elements of austere refinement, control and icy focus, but Book of Hours brings the heat too, and is a more wide-ranging and grittier affair. Positively bursting with ideas, packed from start to finish with sharp compositional contrasts and dynamic improvisational fluency, Book of Hours is the sound of an artist who isn’t afraid to get a little messy around the edges, cede control, and dirty up the proceedings with experimental rock textures.
Backed by a sensitive but driving trio of Dov Manski on keyboards, Matt Aronoff on electric bass, and Michael W. Davis on drums, the album covers a lot of ground, deploying suite-like compositional structures that touch on everything from delicate, lyrical fingerstyle guitar with swells of rubato noise and electro-ambient soundscapes (“Kyrie”), to slippery, twisting fusion and dreamy rock ostinatos (“Gloria”), not to mention odd time syncopations, atonality, electronic timbral deconstruction, and even a touch of twang.
Book of Hours is a decisive and impressive statement of purpose and direction from a musician to watch. Highly recommended.
–Andrew Luthringer
Gregg Belisle-Chi celebrates the release of Book of Hours at the Royal Room on April 12 at 8:30pm.