Harry Bartlett is a Canadian guitarist and composer based in Nashville. He has been dabbling in jazz and bluegrass for over a decade. For this album, he joined forces with Toronto producer Kurtis Perrie to create a short program of about twenty minutes, divided into seven original tracks, each an impressionist moment showcasing various contemporary landscapes illuminated by atmospheres that are sometimes contemplative, sometimes more energetic. The pastoral folk of one embraces the urban electro of the other here, in a union coloured by Bartlett’s eclectic orchestration: guitar, pump organ, piano, vibraphone, and percussion, to which of course are added the synthetic layers, ultimately more pointillist than cottony, of Perrie.
It’s quite pleasant and relaxing, generally, and it takes the form of detailed atmospheres rather than melodies per se. It’s not to say that there aren’t any, but they are rather evanescent and distilled into changing and atmospheric climates, somewhat like in certain excursions of the Bill Frisell kind.
There are exceptions though, like in these favourite tracks of mine: Long Road with its assured groove supporting one of the most assertive melodies of the program, and Ways of the World, a kind of engaging neo-trad/electro dance.
Kurtis Perrie Conant (electronics, synthesizer);
Harry Bartlett (guitar, pump organ, synthesizer, piano);
Bjorn Kriel (vibraphone);
Jason Martin (percussion)
