Having played one of the first ever public shows at Cafe OTO, it's a long overdue return for cult American folk guitarist Peter Walker. Support comes from English folk guitarist and singer Matt Elliott, well known for his work with The Third Eye Foundation, as well as contributions to classic records by Flying Saucer Attack and Movietone.


PETER WALKER

Noted for dynamic instrumental pieces inspired by the Indian Raga and Spanish flamenco traditions blended with traditional American folk and occasional rock influences, Walker’s debut LP Rainy Day Raga was released by Vanguard Records in 1966, followed by the release of Second Poem in 1968. Along with Sandy Bull, John Fahey, and Robbie Basho, Walker is considered one of the premier guitarists of his generation. On Second Poem, Walker plays guitar and sitar and is accompanied by flutist Jim Pepper (of The Free Spirits) along with violin, tabla, & tamboura. Walker is the missing link between Ravi Shankar and Timothy Leary in more ways than one.

"Walker sits behind a plate of candles, tells stories about the historical congruencies between flamenco and raga, and switches between a nylon string guitar for the Spanish stuff, and a steel-stringed one for the Indian-derived music.

Walker’s virtuosity, in both disciplines, is pretty astonishing, but what’s also striking is how those long years of study and practise seem to have resulted in an intuitive understanding of the guitar and its possibilities; that an obsession with technique has created, unusually, a devotional take on traditional forms that is transcendent rather than hamstrung by muso perfectionism." - John Mulvey, Uncut - review of Peter Walker live at Cafe OTO in 2008

MATT ELLIOTT

Matt Elliott is an English folk guitarist and singer from Bristol, who has also previously produced and recorded electronic music under the name The Third Eye Foundation. New album, Only Myocardial Infarction Can Break Your Heart, announces an optimism previously unsuspected in the musician. A new start, perhaps a form of renewed hope. Whatever it may be, this new album introduces a new dimension in the music of Matt Elliott, without ever questioning the foundations.

From the first notes, the climate (relatively) less dark than usual, and the listener is taken away naturally.The first piece, over 17 minutes, a manifest of a new dynamic and unassailable, a desire to move forward regardless of the obstacles. The melancholy that has always emerged from Matt’s music is transformed here into bustling energy and yet extremely warm. More than ever, he managed to merge shadow and light within the same song. Emotions are no longer opposed, they complement in the most beautiful way. Clearly, the fog has dissipated somewhat and shows the way as it really is, winding and rocky but whose purpose is simply a gateway to the territories of serenity.

So much so that we will never have felt so close to the musician listening to one of his records, sometimes to the point of having the feeling of being in the same room with him to share one of unexpected moments of intoxication as they are rare … and therefore priceless. Only Myocardial Infartion Can Break Your Heart seems to be the work of reconstruction after a Broken Man impregnated with despair. And if the load is less emotional funereal, intense, it remains intact.