Ball of Wax 71 is out now! Thanks to everyone who made the release show last night at Vermillion such a delight. You can hear (and BUY) the whole thing right here, put we’ll keep posting individual tracks until we’re done.
Co-curator Kate Olson brought her old friend Gary Prince into the Ball of Wax 71 fold all the way from the other Washington, doubling the number of guitarists involved. I don’t know if there were actual birds involved in the creation of this piece, but I feel like I can hear them nevertheless – or perhaps as I listen I feel like I am a bird, soaring impossibly high, floating on a column of air.
Despite running just over three minutes, there is so much space in this piece, layers of attackless guitar resonating and interweaving just so, laying out a loose boundary for the melodic, picked lines that come in later. Everything comes in its own time, never rushed or hurried; thoughtful but not overthought, a delicate balance. As that low-end riff comes in toward the end – warm yet sinister, almost Lynchian – I want to hear more, to know where it’s going (I’m a sucker for low end), but it turns out this is Gary gently laying us back down on the ground with the strike of a string and the click of a footswitch. Fortunately, I can (and have, and will again) just hit play whenever I want to take flight again.