Weird Flex by Danny Muth
Guitarist Danny Muth, improviser, fingerstylist, and experimental rock soloist, concocts a style from elements of avant garde, slack-key, skronk, and classic rock.
Once a student of John Tchicai at UC Davis, Muth’s inspirations and influences include Robert Fripp, David Torn, Nels Cline, Roy Montgomery, Adrian Belew, Sonny Sharrock and Fred Frith.
Muth has played with various jazz, alternative, dance, traditional and punk groups across Northern California.
"Weird Flex," his second album, contains 7 tracks of instrumental guitar, further developing the voice established in 2020 on his self-titled debut.
The first piece, "Weird Flex," is a near-atonal motif that builds from a simple clean tone into a noisy cacophony of feedback and effect pedals.
"Rub Some Dirt On It" is a more straightforward riff-based rocker inspired by players like Vernon Reid and Chris Haskett.
The third track, "Descensus ad Inferos," showcases Muth's finger-style ability in an alternate tuning derived from Hawai'ian slack key, augmented with spacey and surfy overdubs.
"Green After Green" is an instrumental reimagining of an older tune originally written for and performed by one of Muth's earlier Sacramento-area bands, Del Mundo. It's a short, fast ride down a rock autobahn on a motorik beat.
The final three tracks are rock instrumentals arranged like jazz compositions-head, solo, head- with off-kilter melodies serving as delivery devices for lead guitar warheads.
The album reflects Muth's philosophy that rock guitar music can and should be adventurous, raw, and improvised.
Tracklist
| 1. | Weird Flex | 5:00 |
| 2. | Rub Some Dirt On It | 3:26 |
| 3. | Descensus ad Inferos | 5:56 |
| 4. | Green After Green | 2:50 |
| 5. | League of Tractors | 3:38 |
| 6. | Fired For Cause | 4:23 |
| 7. | Paean Amid the Ruins | 4:21 |
Credits
All tracks written by Danny Muth
Engineered and Produced by Danny Muth
All instruments by Danny Muth
