The last thing anyone should expect in listening to this remarkable and fascinating compilation are "guitar solos" in any popular sense. Fred Frith has spent decades exploring the sonic range and textures of the instrument using fingers, picks and a great many other devices and tools, so that a "prepared guitar" is commonly utilized, not to mention sounds made by his breath and feet.
Moreover, improvisation is core to these eighteen pieces, the first eight of which were recorded in 1974 over four days with remainder recorded in 1976, 1978 and 1988 and the compilation made in 1991 by the Swiss label Rec Rec Genossenschaft. Beyond this, it helped this listener to dispense with the idea that there are songs, though some titles like "Glass c/w Steel," "Out of Their Heads (On Locoweed)," "Alienated Industrial Seagulls," and "Insomnia," are evocative what is heard in the pieces.
This is also not background music and dedicated attention, either through headphones or the volume turned up is most cases, is the best way to approach these challenging works. Though there is some harshness, including the "Alienated Industrial Seagulls" and its intense string-stretching and other elements, much of this could be heard as ambient.
The goal is not the representation of traditional technique in terms of riffs, the rapid recitation of notes in soloing and so on, but, it seems, the exploration of tone, color and the evocation of environment. In this, Guitar Solos is a decided success, especially if one allows for the music to envelope the listener as an engrossing atmospheric experience.
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