Harold Biffen, The Wormhole and the Hymn
The Wormhole and the Hymn (Tape Drift Records)
“After thirty years of guitar and nearly as many as an improvisor, Harold Biffen releases his first-ever recording, a collection of fully realized steel string pieces that straddle the boundary between improvisation and composition. Whether drawing on his classical training or years spent with abstract electronics, Biffen uses the bare physicality of the guitar, his two hands, and a pick to create unstable harmonic structures that cluster, morph, collapse, and reassemble again—though with a lyricism and rhythmic vitality that will drop as many jaws as it does raise eyebrows. There are no preparations, effects, or standard cliches here, just formally inventive constructions that range from the gorgeously elegiac to the mischievous to the austere and back again. At times tender, brash, soaring, and proudly lo-fi, The Wormhole and the Hymn signals the arrival of a major new voice in the cosmos of post-everything guitar.”
