Christopher Mayo – Walk the Darkness Down
Andrew Noseworthy; Grace Scheele
people | places | records (peopleplacesrecords.bandcamp.com/album/walk-the-darkness-down)
Toronto-based composer Christopher Mayo has created amazing, unforgettable, experimental music here in three compositions written between 2019 and 2023.The electric guitars are performed by Andrew Noseworthy, harp by Grace Scheele, and other effects by Mayo himself.
Mayo says Townes Van Zandt’s 1965 track Lungs was his reference point for the opening guitar track Walk the Darkness Down. Noseworthy plays and records ten electric guitars with open tunings that have been slightly ‘detuned’ to match the guitar on Van Zandt’s album, as a layered background, with a solo electric lead over top. Percussive mallets create more “noisy” effects. The ten guitars are unified yet sound separate too. Accented intervals and chords, ascending and descending slides, low held notes and strums become more frequent. The noise is gradually eliminated as the loud chords, held notes and accents are separated by silent spaces leading to a vibrating single note ending.
Composed for this release, A Sick, Sly Age for harp and electric guitar is transfixing. It opens with prepared harp rattling and slow electric guitar, then a single repeated hypnotic note through to close, its almost toe-tapping quality making the harp and electric guitar lines more interesting.
The closing harp solo It Could Be You or You or You has Scheele play quietly while pushing the composition’s written lines from soft start to attention grabbing high harp pitches ending. This perfectly composed/performed/recorded release is for all listeners regardless of musical tastes, ranging from tonal to atonal, comforting soft sounds to loud pseudo crashes. Love it!!
