Paul Metzger

on 180 gram vinyl. Tombeaux, the much-anticipated new album from Paul Metzger, marks our alchemist's third appearance on Nero's Neptune, following critically-acclaimed contributions to labels like Locust and Honest Jon's. Metzger summons the spirits of musical Appalachian forefathers, guitarist Django Reinhardt and classical sitarist Nikhil Banerjee, among others, weaving a peerless, highly individualistic music that sounds unlike anyone but himself. Metzger's playing doesn't imitate raga structures so much as use those modal figures as a starting point. He employs dazzling, breviloquent string-plucks on the main banjo strings, while producing rhythmic, droning textures on the cross-strings of an added bridge. Some have suggested similarities to the works of John Fahey or Sandy Bull, but Metzger's modus operandi doesn't constitute a mirroring of those styles; rather, he composes and operates apart from their music, in an insular and altogether separate universe. In the process, Metzger transcends and expands the lexicon in a wholly organic manner.