Plays Well

Inspired equally by punk, free jazz, classic rock, minimalism, experimental film, and conceptual art, Licht is, simply, the only guitar player able to eliminate the gap between Derek Bailey and Eddie Van Halen. Licht's solo journeys are the ultimate forum for his all-encompassing guitar approach, and Plays Well is the most ambitious display so far of his ever-morphing world of sound and vision. 'Remington Khan' is a spiral staircase of note-climbing and tone-pulling, as Licht patiently builds a brain-stretching pyramid of guitar blocks, in what he considers a tribute both to Henry Flynt's masterful 1981 violin meditation 'You Are My Everlovin' and to Licht's friend and colleague Jim O'Rourke. 'The Old Victrola' sandwiches two variations on Captain Beefheart's classic 'Wel' (one a detonating guitar accompaniment, the other a meditative organ hymn) around a Warholian re-coloring of 70's disco.