Michael Chapman was a prolific guitarist’s guitarist from Yorkshire who covered the whole spectrum - blues, jazz, sensual ballads and Eastern ragas right through to experimental noise. Thurston Moore even name checked him as one of the inspirations for Sonic Youth which doesn’t happen to everyone. He was also a prolific, energetic artist, squeezing in 58 LP during his career and gigging until he passed to the great stage in the sky in 2021.
Apparently there were a couple of late career reappraisals, both of which failed to cross my radar, but since his passing his name has been kept alive by various acolytes which is where our paths crossed. The ever great Andrew Tuttle (who contributed a track to TSMM’s folk compilation Future Folk: Friendly Faces; Different Spaces) is the latest to pay tribute.
Another Fish was an unfinished instrumental LP from Chapman that showed the old timer still dabbling and exploring the possibilities of his instrument. Some of it look backs sentimentally to the traditional barnyard swingers and backyard blues of his youth. Most are dreamier and drift through the speakers on cushions of reverb and effected notes, urging you to get comfortable, whilst some are a bit loopier, low key lysergic and insistent, urging you come along for the ride. It’s a solid, if not quite end of year list gracing archival dig, into what I imagine is quite a collection of dusty tapes and hard drives.
What is remarkable though are Tuttle’s re-workings and improvisations. Armed with his banjo and studio gear he has really gone to town on the source material and inspiration. If you know Tuttle then you’re already aware of his eminently listenable banjotronic experimentalism and ambient folk boundary nudging, his recordings are always ear and mind opening, and this is particularly special.
Here he Makes Americana Great Again by ditching the bombast, focussing instead on succinct finger picking, mantric technology enabled repetition and hypnotic minimalism which he precision places over some accomplished ambient constructs and kosmische daydreamery, quite possibly uniting the purists and the progressives in the process. It’s a thing of hazy ambient Americana wonder and I wholeheartedly recommend you sink into it.
Playlist Companion
You can check a track from the LP alongside rather less tripped out, eclectic folk sounds in the Slow Folk Playlist.
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