LOS ANGELES ELECTRIC 8 - Los Angeles Electric 8 (Self Release) by Massimo Ricci September 4, 2008

The name of the ensemble makes the intentions apparent: eight electric guitarists articulating digital dexterity through “classic vacuum tube amplifiers”. Ben Harbert, Felix Salazar, JohnPaul Trotter, Brandon Mayer, Marc Nimoy, Andy Nathan, Chelsea Green and Philip Graulty produce mostly clean or mildly saturated tones from their axes to tackle a variegated kind of repertoire that includes names such as Shostakovich and Mendelssohn (reproducing this kind of scores without descending into nonsensicality is not an easy task indeed - not to mention that, quite often, the originals sound ridiculous themselves by now - yet this group somehow succeeds) and compositions by Nathaniel Braddock, Randall Kohl and Wayne Siegel, the latter’s lengthy “Domino Figures” being the most interesting track of the program, a coalescence of modern minimalism and skeletal harmonies with lots of beautiful resonant halos.

Braddock’s “III Tempered Lancaran” is clearly influenced by Balinese gamelan, the strange tunings making sure that the metallic qualities of the rhythmic pulse are improved, thus suggesting just intonation. The classics are finely executed but, for obvious reasons, the pathos deriving from these versions is negligible: LAE8 behave brilliantly, but I’d have a preference for them to focus exclusively on contemporary composers, as it’s there that collective spirit and solid skills get better highlighted. A pleasurable record, in any case.