On Texture Songs, Chuck Roth finds whole universes on the fretboard

I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve seen a guitarist set up a spaceship-console pedalboard, then proceed to make the most boring music I’ve ever heard in my life. It’s true that oftentimes, the most beautiful guitars sound nothing like guitars – just ask my worn-out copy of Loveless, my battered Blue Bell Knoll – but that doesn’t mean that funnelling your sound through a data centre of effects is a failsafe winner. Bit of reverb? Nice, sure. Little bit of fuzz? Sure. Chorus? Go on, but don’t overdo it. A wah? A flanger? Come on now.

On Texture Songs, his second album for Bill Orcutt’s Palilalia label, Chuck Roth rejects this decadence with aplomb. It’s one thing that his instrument always has a very clean sound, but quite another that that in itself is a vital part of creating something strange and beautiful. The seven tracks that make up Texture Songs are just one guitar and voice; raw takes that capture something incredibly fleeting. Roth’s voice is ghostly, and his playing sounds like broken glass.

These twin elements orbit one another to take the music to another plane – sometimes gristly, sometimes stark, often beautiful. The lack of sustain on his instrument really helps to stitch together a soundworld like no other. His playing is a scattergun collage of scratches, harmonics, and scrapes, while his bass-string plucks and melodic licks land like pointillist paint blobs.

“Waiting” revolves around a delicate melody, a scuttling lick, but can’t help be thrown from side-to-side on occasion by an awesome vortex of tactile string scratches, while the avant-punk of “Hometown Hero” recalls both the Spiderland highs of David Pajo’s playing and the free-rock anti-sambas of Zé Ramalho in one fell swoop. “Love Song”, the record’s closer, meanwhile, is probably my favourite cut here. Roth meanders around the fretboard to craft a wonky devotional: the emotion of each ringing string gets me straight in the back of the skull.

Although Roth’s palette may not be totally alien to anyone well versed in Derek Bailey, Gastr del Sol, or Bill Orcutt himself, his playing is almost uniquely physical. It’s rare, but also very life affirming, to see the guitar played in such a creative manner. Even rarer to find such soaring songs rising out of the detritus.