Short Reviews [Kevin Kastning - 2018 - "30/36"]

The rather unusual title of this album is a reference to the two instruments used throughout, namely a 36-string Double Contraguitar and the 30-string Contra-Alto guitar, both of which were invented by Kastning. This is his 33rd album for Greydisc Records, and his fifth totally solo, and he is at home composing and performing chamber music as he is working in the avant garde with musicians such as Michael Manring and Mark Wingfield. Yet another graduate of the famous Berklee College of Music in Boston, he has also studied privately with Pat Metheny. There are times when the guitar sounds like a harpsichord, or a piano with the sustaining pedal depressed, or even a sitar while musically it is like some of the most intricate and riveting classical music one could come across. The recording quality is incredible, and this is an album which really rewards being played on headphones, as it is only then that the reverb and the use of space/silence comes into full prominence. Dynamic, powerful and riveting, this is classical guitar taken to a whole new level. The instruments being deployed are huge, and massively complicated to play, yet this soon becomes about the music and not about how it has been put together. When I start listening to the album the world drifts away and I am taken to a new place. This is no music which can be played in the background, but rather something which needs close attention as only then will the listener truly enjoy and understand the sheer beauty contained within.