Ted Morcaldi - Celestial Stranger (2025) [Hi-Res]

Celestial Stranger, the latest album by Connecticut born, UK based guitarist Ted Morcaldi, is a singular labour of love, not least a love for a magical corner of his adopted country – the fens, and Ely Cathedral, where he spent a great deal of lockdown with his wife. Working on electric guitar, classical guitar, twelve-string guitar, Roland P/V synthesiser, Morcaldi casts his vivid, wistful, tonal phrases into a deep, nocturnal, reverberant suspension, reminiscent of ECM productions, his playing rendered luminous against the dark, open-ended recesses of the imagination, sparked here by the alluring otherness of his environment on ‘Elyesque', for example. His musical sketches never outstay their welcome, swelling up, glowing, stating their point, before dissolving into the black.
There are reminders of the musicians Morcaldi openly admires – David Sylvian and Holger Czukay, of Can, especially when he hits multi-angled grooves with his fellow players, of Jon Hassell’s haunting fourth world
explorations – ‘Time Windows’ is based on an improvisation Morcaldi recorded the night of Hassell’s death. It illustrates the strengths of the group he put together for this album – bassist Joel Humann and Joshua Blackmore on drums. They lay down a discreet but frictional, almost abrasive, scuffling backdrop, as if throwing down a complex challenge, a counterpoint to which Morcaldi rises time and again.