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
