If you’ve been disappointed with solo acoustic guitarists recently hyped in the indie media, you might want to give Los Angeles guitarist Jim McAuley a listen.  McAuley doesn’t fit into any particular mold—improv, folk, experimental, blues, modern primitive, new weird, what have you—which is both what makes his music particularly valuable, and, ironically, obscure.  So, as of this writing, you don’t find much on the Internet about McAuley. I can tell you that he plays in a guitar trio (the Acoustic Guitar Trio) with Nels Cline and Rod Poole, and that he doesn’t care much for musical labels: “I generally try not to let such labels [free improvisation] or their implied rules get in the way of my playing.” 

Gongfarmer 18 (gongfarmer: likewise difficult to illuminate—a discontinued comic strip? Someone who cleans latrines? Relating to the G.O.N.G. community astronomy project?) is a collection of 11 solo acoustic guitar performances on different instruments—12-string, classical, 6-string steel, and “Marquette prepared parlor guitar”—in multiple tunings, most of them original.  But what is central is the deep narrative thread woven through McAuley’s music, his sense of space, the patience that’s the sign of a mature conception.

McAuley’s style is elemental—particularly the flamenco techniques, like the dashing rain of “Dark Blooming”, and also bluesy, like the raw Americana (through a kind of “improv” lens) of “Blues for Wally Blanchette”.  The far left of the spectrum shines in the junk-percussion orchestra of prepared guitar on “Kneebounce” (reminiscent of Stefan Basho-Junghans work on his album Waters in Azure).  You might sense John Fahey’s scope, or Bert Jansch’s rhythmic insistence here and there. But also be reminded of Roger Smith’s nylon-string scratching, Derek Bailey’s pointillism, and Marc Ribot’s down-low broken ragtime.

What is most satisfying, through all the techniques, tunings, and temperatures, is to follow the long low line and lasting thread through all its accents, twists, and turns and discover a satisfying continuity and symmetry in the freshly improvised and allegiance-free music, by a musician with a seasoned voice of his own.