The Complete Recordings 1981-1984, by Andy Summers and Robert Fripp, Due March 28, 2025

In the early to mid 1980s, guitarists Andy Summers of The Police and Robert Fripp of King Crimson collaborated on two albums of progressive and experimental electric guitar music, I Advance Masked (1982) and Bewitched (1984).

Both albums have long been held in high regard by the guitar community, with the first one even cracking the Billboard 200 charts.

Now both albums are being rereleased over 40 years later with bonus tracks as part of The Complete Recordings 1981-1984, which includes a third album of previously unreleased material, entitled Mother Hold the Candle Steady.

The 3CD/1Blu-Ray set is scheduled for release on March 28, 2025, with the first single, “Skyline,” from the “new” album currently available for download and streaming.

https://www.dgmlive.com/news/andy-summers-and-robert-fripp

--Raj Manoharan

 

Smallcreep’s Day (1980), by Mike Rutherford

Smallcreep’s Day, the debut solo album by Mike Rutherford, is perhaps the greatest and most significant work the Genesis and Mike and the Mechanics bassist/guitarist has ever committed to record. It is Rutherford’s premier showcase as a composer, bandleader, and musician.

Unlike his notoriously entertaining second solo album, the appropriately titled Acting Very Strange (1982), Rutherford wisely leaves the vocal duties to another singer, a strategy Rutherford utilized to maximum effect in Mike and the Mechanics. This results in fantastic and compelling vocals, allowing Rutherford to concentrate on orchestrating a musical masterwork.

 

The record is a concept album based on a 1965 novel titled Mr. Smallcreep’s Day, about the trials and travails of a hapless factory worker. I can follow the concept somewhat, but I still haven’t deciphered the full impact of what is being stated here. However, I do get the sense from the grandiosity of the music that something deep and profound is unfolding.

 

The real marvel here is the outstanding musicianship on display. Rutherford has assembled a fantastic band here, with Noel McCalla on vocals, Anthony Phillips on keyboards, Morris Pert on percussion, and Simon Phillips on drums. Of course, the highlight is Rutherford’s work on bass and guitar, the latter of which is the most intense and voluminous Rutherford has ever recorded, especially in comparison to his work with Genesis and Mike and the Mechanics.

 

Along with Andy Summers of The Police, Rutherford was one of the most underrated guitarists of the 1980s, especially because his guitar work was directed at serving the song rather than spotlighting his musical prowess.

 

But any doubt about Rutherford’s abilities is completely erased as this album is literally brimming with his stomping bass, lyrical acoustic and electric guitars, and blazing guitar synthesizer. If he hadn’t already done so, Rutherford reveals himself to be a wide-ranging, diverse, superb, and accomplished guitarist.

 

--Raj Manoharan

Happy Birthday, Andy Summers!

On New Year's Eve, Tuesday, December 31, 2024, Andy Summers – my favorite guitarist and musician of all time – turned 82 years old.

I first became acquainted with the music of Summers in 1983 at the age of 10 in a Catholic elementary school classroom when I heard a hypnotic and futuristic-sounding pop/rock song emanating from the radio of Candy, my substitute teacher. When I asked what the song was and who recorded it, I was promptly informed that it was “Spirits in the Material World” by The Police. I was instantly hooked, so much so that that Christmas, my parents got me a vinyl copy of Synchronicity, The Police’s fifth and final studio album and one of the biggest hits of the year. The Police have since remained my favorite rock band of all time.

Summers was the guitarist for the mega-popular group, who were active in the late 1970s and early 1980s and reunited for a 30th anniversary tour in 2007 and 2008. Being a good decade older than his bandmates Sting and Stewart Copeland, Summers began his professional recording career in the early 1960s, playing for Zoot Money’s Big Roll Band (which later became the psychedelic but short-lived Dantalian’s Chariot), Eric Burdon’s New Animals, and Soft Machine. After formally studying guitar at California State University, Northridge, from the late 1960s to the early 1970s, Summers returned to England and plied his trade as a session guitarist for Joan Armatrading, Neil Sedaka, Kevin Coyne, and Deep Purple’s Jon Lord before achieving monumental success and international stardom with The Police.

After the dissolution of The Police in the early 1980s, Summers scored some Hollywood films (Down and Out in Beverly Hills, Weekend at Bernie’s) and recorded one rock vocal album before establishing himself as an acclaimed and accomplished contemporary instrumental guitarist across a variety of styles, including jazz, fusion, new age, and world music.

I was privileged to interview Summers by telephone in Fall 2000 for the January 2001 issue of DirecTV: The Guide. I was pleasantly surprised when I discovered that Summers posted a notice of the interview in the news section of his Web site. Later, I met Summers in person during his book tour in Fall 2006, just a few months before The Police reunited for a 30th anniversary reunion tour, which I was fortunate to attend twice, first at Giants Stadium in August 2007 and then at PNC Bank Arts Center in August 2008.

I highly recommend the following Andy Summers solo albums: XYZ, Mysterious Barricades, The Golden Wire, Charming Snakes, World Gone Strange, Synaesthesia, Earth + Sky, Harmonics of the Night, and Vertiginous Canyons.

--Raj Manoharan

Adventures in Space (2024), by Paul Speer

After being refined by the fires of Ax Inferno and returning from his Sonoran Odyssey of the American Southwest, guitarist Paul Speer launches into the stratosphere with Adventures in Space, one of his finest solo albums and one of the very best electric guitar recordings out there. And I really mean “out there” in every sense of the expression.

While the album and all the songs have space-based and space-inspired names, the music is actually down to Earth and very accessible. This is not typical “space music” at all – it is pure, unadulterated electric guitar, with the high-tech gloss of the space age.

 

The seven organic compositions contained within are driven by Speer’s blazing guitar, thunderous bass, and scintillating synthesizers and Gregg Bissonette’s pulse-pounding drums. Speer’s former musical collaborator David Lanz contributes graceful piano work on “Spacewalk Europa,” and Ron Krasinski provides kinetic drumming on “Black Hole Dance Party.”

 

The most affecting and impactful tune on the album is the beautifully poignant and solemn “Memories of Earth,” which is also one of Speer’s best compositions. It functions as both a futuristic nostalgic reminiscence of our home planet long after the human race has relocated to a more viable world and a present-day exhortation for us to make sure that our precious Earth doesn’t become a memory anytime soon.

 

The whole album is hypnotic and mesmerizing from beginning to end and a fantastic showcase for Speer’s versatile mastery of the electric guitar and his brilliance as a composer.

 

Adventures in Space is further proof that Paul Speer – one of the few remaining true guitar heroes of the Boomer generation along with Andy Summers, Pat Metheny, and Eric Johnson – is showing no signs of slowing down anytime soon.

 

--Raj Manoharan

 

 

Andy Summers' Top Solo Albums Ranked

In the midst of Andy Summers' successful multimedia tour and the summer streaming release and the fall CD release of his latest album, Vertiginous Canyons, I decided to reassess the Police guitarist's body of solo work and share what I consider are his best and most noteworthy recordings.

My main criteria for these rankings are a primary focus on Summers' guitar playing, the tightness of the compositions, and the consistency of style within each album.

The result is a nice range of artistic output that showcases the depth, breadth, and timelessness of Summers' unique talents and signature sounds over the course of nearly 40 years, from his 40s to his 80s. 

Top Andy Summers Solo Album

Mysterious Barricades (1988)

Top Three Andy Summers Solo Albums

Mysterious Barricades (1988)

Synaesthesia (1995)

Harmonics of the Night (2021)

Top Five Andy Summers Solo Albums

Mysterious Barricades (1988)

The Golden Wire (1989)

Synaesthesia (1995)

Harmonics of the Night (2021)

Vertiginous Canyons (2024)

--Raj Manoharan

CD Version of Andy Summers' Latest Album, Vertiginous Canyons, Due November 1, 2024

Following the June 21, 2024, digital download and streaming release of Andy Summers' latest album, Vertiginous Canyons, the CD version of the recording is scheduled to be available beginning November 1, 2024.

So far it appears that the compact disc will contain the same number of tracks as the digital release, eight tunes at a running time of 23 minutes.

It is expected that the CD will contain the actual photographs from Summers' 2023 book, A Series of Glances, that were the inspiration for the music on Vertiginous Canyons.

--Raj Manoharan

Vertiginous Canyons (2024), by Andy Summers

Released in the midst of his popular multimedia theater tour, The Cracked Lens + A Missing String: A Fantastic Evening With a Brilliant Practitioner of the Guitar, Camera, and Written Word, Andy Summers’ first album as an octogenarian proves that the 81-year-old Police and guitar icon is still very much in his prime and isn’t slowing down anytime soon.

Vertiginous Canyons comprises eight luminous tunes inspired by Summers’ 2023 photography book, A Series of Glances. Although Summers was tapped by the publisher to create soundtracks to accompany select photographs in the volume, each of the tracks creates images of its own in the mind of the listener, an effect that Summers usually manages to conjure with his music.

 

This is Summers’ most pared down and elemental album since his 1988 guitar-and-keyboard masterpiece, Mysterious Barricades. But while that album is tightly structured and composed, this album is free-flowing and improvisational.

 

Although Vertiginous Canyons is Summers’ fourteenth original solo studio album, it is actually his third truly solo album in which he is the sole performer on the record. And it is also his first truly solo guitar album, as the electric guitar is the only instrument on hand here. It's also his first release in which the title of the album is not the exact title of one of the tracks.

 

While an album consisting solely of electric guitar music without any other instruments may sound completely boring, Vertiginous Canyons is anything but. All of the exotic sounds on the album are generated entirely by Summers’ ethereal guitar tones channeled through various devices and signal processors. There may be no bass, drums, and keyboards here, but there are numerous rhythms, layers, and leads, as well as quite a bit of sonic heft.

 

The album is a flawless, seamless, and compact 23-minute listen. That may sound like a short running time, but it makes it all the more possible to enjoy the tight collection much more often. All of the tracks are compelling, intriguing, and unique, although I particularly like “Out of the Shadows,” “Translucent,” and “Into the Blue.” The real surprise for me, though, is “Village.” The way it starts out, you don’t expect it to take you where it does, ultimately making for a wondrous musical journey.

 

Incidentally, in my review of Summers’ previous release, Harmonics of the Night, I mentioned that Summers uses “his guitars to create quiet serenity out of the shadows.” One of the tracks on Vertiginous Canyons is called “Out of the Shadows.” Make of that what you will.

 

Vertiginous Canyons is another exciting and worthy addition to Andy Summers’ eclectic body of work. Like Mysterious Barricades, it is soothing, refreshing, and therapeutic. It is acupuncture for the mind.

 

--Raj Manoharan