Simeon Abbott

Zebra Wood is a CD-R collection of solo prepared guitar tracks multi-instrumentalist/composer Simeon Abbott recorded over months of introspective research into many of the instrument's unusual, captivating sound potentials. "Run Time Polymorphism" is a case in point. Jaw-harp tones, knitting-needle-tapped strings and slithery, ringing overtones jump cut to both-ways-at-once slide playing that gets EQed into underwater territory to re-emerge sounding like a thumb piano. "Undefined Behavior" begins with a brief, improbable line that seems to emerge from a Victrola in your granny's attic before it veers off into an ever-changing series of upward motifs interspersed with searing harmonics and rubbed strings. Zebra Wood documents Abbott's questing, creative imagination embarked upon adventures in sound. Significantly, many of the 15 tracks are aphoristically brief, clocking in between one and two minutes. Particularly noteworthy are his keen awareness of dynamic variation and his inventive repetitive versus non-repetitive rhythmic motifs, which hold the listener's attention. Recommended.