This is Jeff’s fifth solo album, and since the last one it’s been 3 years, 1 world record, 2 tours, 4 European tours with Anne Clark, 1 tour as support for Soft Machine and countless solo headline performances across the U.S. and Europe. To promote the new album, Jeff Aug completed a full on European tour in one day, nine concerts in nine countries in 24 hours. In May he is back out on the road performing solo dates as well as supporting Allan Holdsworth – it could be said that Jeff doesn’t like to sit around getting bored…
One of the areas of music that I just don’t listen enough to is that of acoustic guitar - there are just not enough hours in the day to play everything I want to, so when I first stumbled across Jeff I was both grateful and pleased as here is a musician of incredible virtuosity and skill that somehow makes extremely complex music both interesting and compelling, and enjoyable for all of that. This is music at its’ most pure – just a man and his guitar, no overdubs or messing about with additional instrumentation (there is piano on just one song) or vocals. I am a huge fan of Richard Thompson and I can see some elements of his work in Jeff’s, particularly in the driving “Still In The Hedge”. At times there is some of the wistfulness of Gordon Giltrap, and I know that some commentators have likened him to Al Di Meola, but all I can really say is that I totally get what this man is about and really enjoy hearing him play. Highly recommended.
