The Departing of a Dream

Idiosyncratic Connecticut-based musician Loren Mazzacane Connors has been slowly but surely refining his own peculiar approach to guitar since the late ‘70s. His early work as a solo instrumentalist explored the more harrowing byways of American blues and folk traditions, picking up on the fractured, melancholic tendencies of prewar masters like Blind Willie Johnson and Charlie Patton. Though Connors’ unfailingly intense instrumental improvisations often wandered into realms more commonly frequented by jazz or avant-garde players like Sonny Sharrock or Derek Bailey, they always kept their roots in American vernacular styles. 2002’s startlingly abstract The Departing of a Dream marks a radical stylistic break with Connors’ earlier work. On this album, which he conceived at least partly as a tribute to the ambient oceanic swells of Miles Davis’ “He Loved Him Madly,” Connors all but abandons his connection to the blues and starts to craft a new, purely experimental approach to his instrument. Here he makes use of deep reverb and prolonged sustain to create a set of heartbreakingly lonesome ambient soundscapes.