Barry Archie Johnson - Fortune's Mirror (2024) [Hi-Res]

Solo instrumentalists navigate a free and rambling road through an imaginative, oneiric wilderness. So much expressed without singing/words, a direct power line to the psyche, open for interpretation and brimming with melancholy, joy, and somber reflection. The annals of solo guitar music, much like solo piano, can tap into these almost subliminal lines of communication. The new album/debut LP from Los Angeles by way of Ohio guitarist/flautist/songwriter Barry Archie Johnson sings out as a startling and gorgeous new voice in guitar centered landscapes.

Barry’s playing has the depth and patience of Segovia, Will Ackerman, Roy Montgomery, and Mary Halvorson but not only does he have his own voice, something alone which is almost intangibly improbable in the world of guitar music, he has a method of composition that defies easy emotional assignment. For instance, "Half Smile," the third track on the album could be a distant lament or an aching cry of gratitude. We aren’t quite sure. He is also adept at unexpected melodic turns shifting in and out of uncommon time signatures. It could be an intimate waltz here, and odd time dance there, a bit of percussive depth, waves of purposeful notes with overtones ringing out into the echo. If anything, the songs on "Fortune’s Mirror" almost mirror a baroque or Romantic era suite, keys and modalities and tension and instrumentation all carefully folding and unfolding together like branches.

As unique and holistic as Barry’s guitar playing is, there are deeper elements to his craft that emerge early in the record and escort us through the journey. He is a gifted flutist and he summons the same kind of beauty and mystery through the classical wind instrument as he does the steel strings. It first emerges on "Half Smile," a mysterious series of call and response interludes. His flute comes back in similar fashion on "Lumbering Through," again in a harmonized symmetry floating underneath the guitar’s introspective leading voice.

The penultimate track "Outlaw’s Wand" slowly morphs from a determined march into a free time almost adagio like pause of contemplation, then emerging back into a hypnotic waltz. The guitar fades away in ghostly fashion leading us into the final piece "I’m Sure I’ll See You Soon." Here we are gifted with a meandering dialogue between Barry’s guitar and the saxophone of the renowned Patrick Shiroishi, another shining light of the Los Angeles experimental music world. The song itself is simmering with gentle anticipation.

My favorite music is not trapped in time but free from time. Not modern, not ancient, but both. Barry conjures multiple eras, multiple paradigms, and like all records that feel like miniature universes of sound, he confidently but thoughtfully leaves us with a feeling of wholeness and gratitude. Across nine compositions and in less time than it takes to drive from Pasadena to Burbank on a rainy day, Barry plants a flag in the ground and claims a piece of the sonic stratosphere for his own, a deeply emotive and spectral place where we can wander in our minds and don’t want the journey to end. And by doing so, Barry quietly and boldly claims his place as one of the most original and vital voices in the meditative music of his time.

—William Tyler

Tracklist:
1 The Engineer
2 Glass Hand
3 Half Smile
4 Vanishing Hours
5 Sun-Like Star
6 Clouds Made of Static
7 Lumbering Through
8 Outlaw's Wand
9 I'm Sure I'll See You Soon