Accidents With Nature and Each Other

Like his debut, Non-Sequiturs, Harris Newman's second album sparked inevitable comparisons to John Fahey. His instrumentals, largely performed on acoustic steel string, shared many of the same attributes with Fahey's work, and to lesser extents two other guitarists who were on the Takoma label, Robbie Basho and Leo Kottke. There were similar somber, moody compositions, folky but certainly not traditional folk, verging on but not quite crossing over into experimental dissonance and Indian influences. By alternating pensive, spare passages with stormier sections of anxious strumming and picking, the ambience is varied and retains tension, steering well clear of placid new age. So in many ways it's revivalistic, but certainly Newman plays with a great deal of skill and thoughtfulness, and it's not as though the Fahey school of downcast guitar instrumentals is something that's paid tribute to very often. Too, on some of the tracks, Newman departs somewhat from this format by using Bruce Cawdron for accompaniment on percussion and glockenspiel; Newman, and on one track Sandro Perri, also add some lap steel. "It's a Trap, Pt. 1" and "It's a Trap, Pt. 2" in particular achieve an unsettling ghostly, stretched-out feel quite different from the more relaxed Fahey-isms. "Driving All Night With Only My Mind" is also a highlight, Cawdron's percussion and glockenspiel giving the piece a rhythmic bounce and texture that take it into more original territory than the rest of the record.