Music Monday: Review of Joe Hollick’s Rest Lessness

The best records are the ones that can both grab you immediately but also grow on you, particularly with instrumental music which, as I mentioned two weeks ago, grants the listener significantly more freedom to interpret what he hears without the dense push of signposts telling him what it all is supposed to mean.

Such it is with Joe Hollick’s 2022 debut solo album Rest Lessness. He could have given us lyrics to guide us through the opener, “Madrigal Wagon,” but he didn’t need to. The tune is a perfect opener: From the first notes we know that Hollick, who is also a guitarist in the very interesting band Wolf People, is making the guitar the most prominent voice. The fingerpicking is precise and tuneful; The backing electric guitar adds shimmers of mirage-like texture; The driving bass and shuffling drums propel the tune on, kicking up memories and dust on narrow country roads where the shadows dapple the summer sunlit scene careening along, always just shy of but ever threatening to lose control.

I’ve heard it said that Pink Floyd’s David Gilmour will express his emotions in an argument most clearly by using his guitar. As the last echoes of “Madrigal Wagon” fold in upon themselves and flitter away, the next song, “Smoth” begins. The solo guitar is drenched with energy and emotion. The energy is carried not by speed, but rather the timing and rhythm; the emotion is colored with darkness and intensity.

The recording, itself, is interesting. One could have recorded this in such a way that the sounds of Hollick’s left hand and fingers are not heard. It could have been recorded without the twanging and buzzing of strings. Rather, they lend an intimacy and an immediacy to the tune, like the recordings of Robert Johnson or a song recorded by the band in one perfect performance, if not a perfect take. I suspect that these were not accidental in the case, but conscious production choices.

“Smoth” sounds like an exorcism.

 And how to follow that up, all that sound and fury that must surely signify some unknown something? The ethereal opening notes of “Human Hand,” a nine-and-a-half minute textural journey that evokes these moments out of time when we are struck dumb with awe at natural beauty. I’ve experienced it a few times – entering Yosemite Valley, driving through the Alps between Zürich and Liechtenstein, seeing and exploring the Holy Island of Lindisfarne: The moments when the body clings jealously, desperately to the soul that thrills to find such beauty in this world, of all places – it never gets old, and “Human Hand” is a perfect soundtrack for such experiences.

I will refrain from describing the next tune, “Somn,” because between the title and the tune itself I think a listener will grok what’s going on better than I can put it into words.

“Totem Hole” is a quarter-hour tale told by a lone guitar with backing textures. If you don’t think that a single guitar has that much to say, then prepare to be proven wrong. The song dynamic, while maintaining the tone of an otherworldly entity sneaking through a gap in the world-henge.

Again, the recording includes more than just the guitar, but the movement of hands and the intake of Hollick’s breath as he plays. This isn’t stadium music; this is hushed fire-worn parlor music played from the soul.

The distant, plaintive howl of “Totem Hole” ends and is followed by the pulse of the title track, which contains everything from the drive of “Madrigal Wagon” to the ethereality of “Human Hand” and the intimacy of “Smoth” and “Totem Hole.”

 What this tune doesn’t prepare you for is the final number on the record, “Bats on Ward 13,” an unapologetic psychedelic jam. But it makes sense, really: This band had fun in the studio, and you had to imagine that there might have been some gem caught by the tape. And, in the end, it all makes sense.

Rest Lessness is highly recommended.

Here’s a view of Hollick playing with Wolf People (he’s the guitarist on the right who appears to be playing a white or pale yellow Fender Mustang):

Also, perhaps of interest: