{"id":179,"date":"2005-01-03T16:01:29","date_gmt":"2005-01-03T21:01:29","guid":{"rendered":"\/?p=179"},"modified":"2008-12-20T22:05:56","modified_gmt":"2008-12-21T03:05:56","slug":"appreciating-joe-satriani","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/esr.ibiblio.org\/?p=179","title":{"rendered":"Appreciating Joe Satriani"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I like to listen to instrumental electric guitar, and have a very<br \/>\nlarge collection of the genre from the pioneering Jeff Beck albums of<br \/>\nthe 1970s forward, and including most of the output of Jeff Beck, Steve<br \/>\nMorse, Eric Johnson, Steve Vai, Gary Hoey, Marc Bonilla, and half a<br \/>\ndozen other guitar virtuosi.<\/p>\n<p>The seldom-disputed king of this genre today is Joe Satriani, who<br \/>\nhas produced a string of excellent and often groundbreaking albums<br \/>\nsince his debut in 1986.  There are other guitarists who have had<br \/>\nmoments of brilliance exceeding anything in Satriani&#8217;s catalog (I<br \/>\nthink, for example, of Marc Bonilla&#8217;s astonishing <cite>EE<br \/>\nTicket<\/cite> album from 1992) but nobody else has sustained Joe&#8217;s<br \/>\nlevel of quality over eighteen years and a dozen albums.<\/p>\n<p>For those of you who have been living in a hole for fifteen years<br \/>\nJoe Satriani definitely hails from the rock\/blues end of the guitar<br \/>\nspectrum rather than the jazz-fusion one &mdash; his technique is<br \/>\nsometimes near to speed-metal.  His commercial success seems to be<br \/>\nbuilt on an ability to appeal to both intelligent metalheads and<br \/>\nold jazz-fusion fans like me.<\/p>\n<p>Here&#8217;s my personal guide to appreciating Joe&#8217;s work.  It covers<br \/>\nevery track on all of his studio albums, but not the EPs or<br \/>\nlive-concert anthologies.  It&#8217;s aimed mainly at people who have<br \/>\nheard parts of his music and would like to know where to go next, or<br \/>\nwho want to deepen their appreciation of what they&#8217;ve already heard.<\/p>\n<p>One of the perils of being a virtuoso is that you can get so caught<br \/>\nup in your own skill that it&#8217;s hard to know when to stop &mdash;<br \/>\nmusicality can get crowded out by meaningless elaboration.  This is a<br \/>\ntrap that lies in wait for all guitarists above a certain technical<br \/>\nlevel; some (like, say, Yngwe Malmsteen or Tony McAlpine) fall into it<br \/>\nto the point of near-unlistenability, and others are badly compromised<br \/>\nby it but still able to turn out good work when they restrain<br \/>\nthemselves enough (Joe&#8217;s student Steve Vai leaps to mind).  Very few<br \/>\nhave the ability to sustain a flawlessly consistent balance between<br \/>\ntechnique and musicality; Marc Bonilla managed it, Jeff Beck and Eric<br \/>\nJohnson come very close.<\/p>\n<p>Joe Satriani&#8217;s grasp on that happy medium is pretty good but prone<br \/>\nto lapses.  I think he is acutely aware of this problem.  One of the<br \/>\nthemes you can see in his career development is how he struggles not<br \/>\nto let his technique run away with him, sometimes reacting with a<br \/>\nretreat into an obstinate minimalism or over-reliance on traditional<br \/>\nforms (eight-bar blues, the 4\/4 rock beat, etc.).  Gradually, over<br \/>\ntime, he gets better at avoiding these extremes.<\/p>\n<p>Joe takes chances, and sometimes he fails.  Thus, this guide is not<br \/>\ngoing to be an unbroken paean of praise. But one of the things that<br \/>\nkeeps me a fan is his very refusal to play safe, his determination to keep<br \/>\ntrying new things and pushing his own boundaries as a musician.  Joe<br \/>\nshows a rare combination of talent, hard-working dedication to his<br \/>\ncraft, and artistic courage that is worthy of all praise.<\/p>\n<p>One pattern that became apparent to me as I was compiling this<br \/>\nguide is that it is always worth holding Joe&#8217;s song titles in mind as<br \/>\nyou listen to his stuff.  They are often valuable clues to his<br \/>\nintentions.  Many of his pieces seem to have been written as<br \/>\nsoundtracks to go with a strong visual image to which the title is a<br \/>\npointer, and it can thus substantially increase your enjoyment to<br \/>\ndecode whatever references are in the title.<\/p>\n<h3>Not Of This Earth (1986)<\/h3>\n<p>This was Joe&#8217;s freshman album.  I first heard it after<br \/>\n<cite>Surfing With The Alien<\/cite> and <cite>Flying In A Blue<br \/>\nDream<\/cite>, and it was fascinating with that experience to hear<br \/>\nJoe&#8217;s style not quite yet fully developed.<\/p>\n<p>The title track, <cite>Not Of This Earth<\/cite>, blends acoustic and<br \/>\nelectric guitar sounds in an interesting way that Joe would explore<br \/>\nfurther in <cite>The Lords Of Karma<\/cite> on the next album.  It&#8217;s<br \/>\nfollowed by <cite>The Snake<\/cite>, a rather funny tone poem about<br \/>\nslithery things that manages to include references to both the<br \/>\n<cite>Volga Boatmen<\/cite> and some death-metal tune I&#8217;ve never<br \/>\nquite been able to place, I think by Black Sabbath.<\/p>\n<p> <cite>Rubina<\/cite>is named after Joe&#8217;s wife. It is built around a<br \/>\nsimple, pretty melody but somewhat marred by a drum track that sounds<br \/>\nmechanical and is mixed way too far up.  <cite>Memories<\/cite> is<br \/>\nstronger, combining a reggae-like rhythm track with some raga-like and<br \/>\nbluesy melodic influences to produce a unique and tasty sound.<br \/>\nSatriani is finding his voice here. He continues to explore<br \/>\ninteresting territory with <cite>Brother John<\/cite>, an odd but<br \/>\npleasing little modal finger exercise.<\/p>\n<p><cite>The Enigmatic<\/cite> is one of the two standout tracks on<br \/>\nthis album &mdash; tense, dissonant, weirdly inventive.  Joe&#8217;s bold use<br \/>\nof atonality to depict an encounter with the alien is carried off<br \/>\nbeautifully and works well at both the technical and emotional<br \/>\nlevels.<\/p>\n<p>After that, <cite>Driving At Night<\/cite> is positively reassuring as<br \/>\nit reasserts the bluesy call-and-response pattern at the core of rock<br \/>\nguitar.  We are no longer in alien darkness but rather in a soothing and<br \/>\nfamiliar night.<\/p>\n<p>But that night has Earth creatures in it too, and some of them can<br \/>\nbe pretty scary.  <cite>Hordes of Locusts<\/cite> is another tone-poem<br \/>\nabout creepy-crawlies, imbued with the faintly campy menace of a 1950s<br \/>\nmonster movie.  This piece is funny, but (as you&#8217;ll especially learn<br \/>\nif you ever get to hear it live) it also rocks bone-crunchingly hard.<br \/>\nIt&#8217;s a standout.<\/p>\n<p>The remaining two tracks are slight, almost finger exercises.<br \/>\n<cite>New Day<\/cite> feels like dawn after the night of the locusts.<br \/>\n<cite>Headless Horseman<\/cite> is a silly bit of business that refers<br \/>\nto Washington Irving&#8217;s famous short story.<\/p>\n<p>This was a very thought-provoking debut &mdash; uneven, but promising.<br \/>\nThat promise would be fulfilled with the next two albums.<\/p>\n<h3>Surfing with The Alien (1987)<\/h3>\n<p>This was my first introduction to Joe&#8217;s amazing talents, and seems<br \/>\nmore generally to have been the album that made his name and secured<br \/>\nhim a long-term fan base (his official bio describes it as the most<br \/>\ncommercially successful instrumental-guitar album since Jeff Beck&#8217;s<br \/>\ngenre-defining <cite>Wired<\/cite> in 1974).  The Satriani style is<br \/>\nalready fully developed here.<\/p>\n<p>The title cut, <cite>Surfing With the Alien<\/cite>, is without a<br \/>\ndoubt one of the great instrumental rock guitar numbers of all time<br \/>\n&mdash; a screaming hyperkinetic rave-up that goes straight over the<br \/>\ntop and then delivers everything it promises.  The album cover<br \/>\nmakes it obvious that the alien in question is the Silver Surfer<br \/>\nof Marvel Comics fame, and you can hear him swooshing through space<br \/>\nat a couple of points in the track.<\/p>\n<p>The title <cite>Ice 9<\/cite> is a reference to an SF novel by Kurt<br \/>\nVonnegut in which a bizarre form of self-propagating ice freezes all<br \/>\nthe oceans of the world.  This track is not quite such a tour de force as<br \/>\nthe first but tasty all the same.  On almost any other album of<br \/>\ninstrumental guitar it would be a standout; here it tends to fade into<br \/>\nthe background in comparison to the flashier pieces.<\/p>\n<p>My personal favorite on this album is <cite>Crushing Day<\/cite>.<br \/>\nWhat makes this a standout is that there is not a wasted note in in<br \/>\nit.  Though the first and second solo sections reach blistering<br \/>\nintensity, Joe has his technique under perfect control here; he never<br \/>\nloses sight of the underlying melodic idea for a nanosecond, and the<br \/>\nresult is tight and right. Half a dozen albums and nearly twenty years<br \/>\nlater it is still one of his best pieces of playing.<\/p>\n<p><cite>Always With Me, Always With You<\/cite> is a quiet little<br \/>\nnumber, this album&#8217;s equivalent of <cite>Rubina<\/cite>.  He hasn&#8217;t yet<br \/>\nattained the simple lyricism and delicacy we&#8217;ll hear in<br \/>\n<cite>Home<\/cite>, two albums on, but he&#8217;s reaching for it.<\/p>\n<p><cite>Satch Boogie<\/cite> is another propulsive rave-up that stands<br \/>\ncomparison to the title track as a display of guitar pyrotechnics.<br \/>\nInterestingly, what makes the whole piece work is a quiet section in<br \/>\nthe middle (about 1:44 in) that builds tension towards the ending.<br \/>\nJoe has commented in an interview that a fan who disliked the<br \/>\nquiet part once sent him a mix tape with the section deleted in an<br \/>\neffort to prove his point.  &#8220;It sucked,&#8221; said Satriani, succinctly<br \/>\nand correctly.<\/p>\n<p><cite>Hill of the Skull<\/cite> is 1:48 of auditory comic book.  You<br \/>\ncan see the evil skull-shaped temple brooding on the hilltop, torches<br \/>\nguttering in the great gaunt eyesockets&#8230;<\/p>\n<p><cite>Circles<\/cite> is much more substantial, opening<br \/>\nwith a lovely acoustic-guitar appetizer that sets you up for a muscular<br \/>\nelectric main course in the manner of Led Zeppelin&#8217;s or Heart&#8217;s best.<br \/>\nThe loud-soft contrast is artfully handled, and like all of Joe&#8217;s<br \/>\nbest work this piece is distinguished by seventeen-jewel composition<br \/>\nand exacting control of his instruments.<\/p>\n<p><cite>Lords of Karma<\/cite> continues the hot streak, opening with<br \/>\nsitar sounds and launching into a driving raga-influenced melody.  The<br \/>\nexultant glissando guitar scream at about 1:42 is particularly<br \/>\nlovely. At a couple of points in the piece the recurring sitar<br \/>\nsounds make a pungent contrast to the guitar line.  The whole<br \/>\nis as tasty as a good Indian curry.<\/p>\n<p><cite>Midnight<\/cite>, by contrast, is as mannered as a Bach fugue,<br \/>\nnearly a finger exercise.  It segues directly into the final track,<br \/>\n<cite>Echoes<\/cite>, which returns to the meditative feel of<br \/>\n<cite>Circles<\/cite> and finishes off the album in excellent style.<\/p>\n<p>This is a great album, barely a dud track on it.  Even <cite>Hill of<br \/>\nthe Skull<\/cite> works in its silly way.  It remains among Joe&#8217;s two<br \/>\nor three best, and is probably still the best introduction to his<br \/>\nmusic.<\/p>\n<h3>Flying in a Blue Dream (1989)<\/h3>\n<p>This album starts off strong with the hypnotic feedback and<br \/>\nacoustic rhythm guitars of the title track.  The long sustained<br \/>\nelectric guitar notes played over them contain subtle shifts of tambre<br \/>\nand vibrato that would do Carlos Santana proud.  The interplay between<br \/>\nthe acoustic guitars and the electric lead line recalls<br \/>\n<cite>Circles<\/cite> and works equally well here.  As with that track<br \/>\nthe effect is meditative, almost mystical.  And, no, Satriani himself<br \/>\ndoesn&#8217;t know what the little boy is saying in that background sample.<\/p>\n<p>The next track calls itself mystical, <cite>The Mystical Potato Head<br \/>\nGroove Thing<\/cite>, but isn&#8217;t.  The effect is more one of inspired<br \/>\nwhimsy, with subtle off-rhythms and a whirling, eccentric guitar line<br \/>\ngiving the piece the feel more of witty banter than anything else.  The<br \/>\nbridge section at about 3:00 in echoes the melody of <cite>Surfing with<br \/>\nthe Alien<\/cite> but the effect is of commentary rather than self-imitation.<br \/>\nThe track closes with a classic smashing rock finish, very satisfying.<\/p>\n<p>In <cite>Can&#8217;t Slow Down<\/cite>, Joe Satriani sings.<br \/>\nUnfortunately, even the most dedicated Satriani fan generally reacts<br \/>\nto his singing with a heartfelt wish that the man would shut up and<br \/>\nplay his guitar.  Fortunately, he does.<\/p>\n<p><cite>Headless<\/cite> is just as embarrassing, a pointless retake of<br \/>\n<cite>Headless Horseman<\/cite> from the first album that is only partly<br \/>\nredeemed by Joe&#8217;s quiet, rather self-mocking chuckle at the end.<\/p>\n<p>In <cite>Strange<\/cite>, Joe sings again.  The contrast between his<br \/>\nclumsy vocals and the shimmering loveliness of the guitar bridges is<br \/>\nalmost painful to the ear.   Alas, the worst is yet to come.<br \/>\nThat worst is the next track, <cite>I Believe<\/cite>, possibly<br \/>\nthe most cringe-worthy opus Joe has ever committed to tape.  He sings<br \/>\nagain, wrapping an uncertain voice around lyrics that intend to be<br \/>\ninspirational but come out mawkish.  A few lovely guitar bits cannot<br \/>\nredeem this mess.<\/p>\n<p>In the next track, <cite>One Big Rush<\/cite>, Joe blessedly does not sing.<br \/>\nWe&#8217;re back in the familiar territory of <cite>Surfing With The Alien<\/cite><br \/>\nor <cite>Satch Boogie<\/cite> here.  It&#8217;s not as inventive as the album&#8217;s<br \/>\nfirst two numbers but a good solid piece of work.  Probably the best bit<br \/>\nis the last five seconds of coda.<\/p>\n<p>On <cite>Big Bad Moon<\/cite>, Joe sings again. This time it works a<br \/>\nlittle better, as he portrays some hapless geek who has become a<br \/>\nwerewolf and, far from considering it a curse, discovers <q>But I<br \/>\n<em>like<\/em> it!<\/q>.  His fretboard antics over a steaming boogie<br \/>\ngrind rescue this track.<\/p>\n<p><cite>The Feeling<\/cite> is 50 seconds of rootsy banjo.  This works<br \/>\npretty well, considering.<\/p>\n<p>In <cite>The Phone Call<\/cite> Joe seems to have figured out that<br \/>\nhis weak singing voice works best as comedy.  This mini-soap-opera<br \/>\nabout a selfish and none-too-bright guy dumping his ditzy and<br \/>\ngold-digging girlfriend is worth a chuckle or two.<\/p>\n<p><cite>Day at the Beach (New Rays From an Ancient Sun)<\/cite> echoes<br \/>\n<cite>Midnight<\/cite> from the last album, and works best as a sort of<br \/>\nextended intro to <cite>Back to Shalla-Bal<\/cite>.  This track is<br \/>\nstraight-ahead leather-jacketed rock complete with a revving Harley.<br \/>\nThe motorcycle theme continues in the rather similar next<br \/>\ntrack, <cite>Ride<\/cite>.  Joe sings again, managing not to botch<br \/>\nthe job too badly.  Still, one does wish he would stop.<\/p>\n<p><cite>The Forgotten<\/cite> begins with a short finger exercise that<br \/>\nis, like <cite>Day at the Beach<\/cite>, a preface to something more<br \/>\nsubstantial.  Part two returns to the meditative, introverted feel of<br \/>\nthe title track, but with an emotionally powerful melody that feels<br \/>\nalmost like something a Romantic-era classical composer might have<br \/>\npenned.  It&#8217;s up there with the first two tracks as a standout.<\/p>\n<p><cite>The Bells of Lal<\/cite> is another two-part composition, but<br \/>\nthis one feels like noisy fragments that never quite come together or<br \/>\nrise above the level of noodling.<\/p>\n<p>,<cite>Into the Light<\/cite> by contrast, feels elegiac and<br \/>\ngraceful.  I think of cloudscapes suffused with sunlight when I hear<br \/>\nthis piece, and rather wish Joe had given it more than 2:29 of<br \/>\ndevelopment.<\/p>\n<p>This album is uneven, undisciplined.  Parts of it match and even<br \/>\nexceed the quality of <cite>Surfing With The Alien<\/cite>, but a lot of<br \/>\nit is experiments that should have been left on the studio floor.  Joe<br \/>\nclearly needs somebody working with him to curb his excesses.<\/p>\n<h3>The Extremist (1992)<\/h3>\n<p>Perhaps Joe found that somebody.  This album returns to the consistent<br \/>\nform of <cite>Surfing With The Alien<\/cite>; it&#8217;s neither as quirky nor<br \/>\nas inventive as <cite>Flying in a Blue Dream<\/cite>, but full of energy<br \/>\nand joy.<\/p>\n<p><cite>Friends<\/cite>, <cite>The Extremist<\/cite>. and<br \/>\n<cite>War<\/cite> are all good solid work, intricate and high-energy<br \/>\nguitar explorations in the now-standard Satriani mold that reward<br \/>\nrepeated listening pretty well.  There&#8217;s some nice blues harp in the<br \/>\nsecond track, but the third is probably the strongest of the three.<\/p>\n<p><cite>Cryin&#8217;<\/cite> is a quiet, bluesy track with a prog-rock feel to<br \/>\nit.  It&#8217;s well followed up by <cite>Rubina&#8217;s Blue Sky<\/cite>, a down-home<br \/>\ndelight that uses mandolins and acoustic guitars to evoke the feel<br \/>\nof folk or bluegrass music. The last two minutes sets off the acoustic<br \/>\nguitars against a singing, joyful electric-guitar line, then mysteriously<br \/>\nfades out with a pibroch-like ending.<\/p>\n<p><cite>Summer Song<\/cite> (which you can deduce from one of the the<br \/>\nalbum-cover photos originally titled <cite>The Door Into Summer<\/cite><br \/>\nafter Robert Heinlein&#8217;s novel) was this album&#8217;s big radio single, a job<br \/>\nit fulfills admirably well.  A tight and well-layered arrangement and<br \/>\nimmaculate production make this a crowd-pleaser.<\/p>\n<p><cite>Tears In the Rain<\/cite> is another intricate finger exercise<br \/>\nlike <cite>Midnight<\/cite>, conducted this time on a nylon-string<br \/>\nguitar.<\/p>\n<p><cite>Why<\/cite> and <cite>Motorcycle Driver<\/cite> return to the basic<br \/>\nstyle of propulsive and intricate guitar we&#8217;ve heard in the first three<br \/>\ntracks and <cite>Summer Song<\/cite>.  Like those, these tracks are<br \/>\nsunny and exuberant music that would sound great pouring out of a<br \/>\nboom box at your next beach party.<\/p>\n<p><cite>New Blues<\/cite> is a total contrast &mdash; a spare,<br \/>\nintroverted blues piece that fades into silence.  It foreshadows where<br \/>\nthe next studio album is going.<\/p>\n<h3>Time Machine (1993)<\/h3>\n<p>The first disk of this two disk set combines rarities, oddities,<br \/>\nand unreleased tracks from old studio sessions.  The second is a<br \/>\ncollection of live performances.  The quality is uneven here; some of<br \/>\nthis stuff is the equivalent of doodling.  But for a serious fan this<br \/>\nis definitely worth having, if only because it collects limited-release<br \/>\nstuff like <cite>Dreaming #11<\/cite>.<\/p>\n<p>Joe is generally pretty good at picking strong openings for his<br \/>\nalbums and <cite>Time Machine<\/cite> is no exception.  This exercise<br \/>\nin massive-guitars-of-doom can bear comparison with his best work and<br \/>\nis a standout track.  Following it, <cite>The Mighty Turtle Head<\/cite> is<br \/>\nmerely passable; the parts are OK but don&#8217;t seem to cohere<br \/>\nwell. <cite>All Alone<\/cite> works better; it&#8217;s a big blues tune in<br \/>\nclassic style.  One can easily imagine it as movie music.<\/p>\n<p>On <cite>Banana Mango II<\/cite> Joe jams with world-beat rhythms.<br \/>\nThe result is loose, floaty and interesting, quite different from his<br \/>\nusual sound. <cite>Thinking of You<\/cite> is a simple, pretty tune,<br \/>\nlovely and lyrical, proving once again that Joe doesn&#8217;t need effects<br \/>\nor elaborate arrangements to sound good &mdash; another standout<br \/>\ntrack.<\/p>\n<p>From the sublime to the ridiculous: <cite>Crazy<\/cite> is another<br \/>\none of those regrettable occasions on which Joe sings.  We live<br \/>\nthrough it.<\/p>\n<p><cite>Speed Of Light<\/cite> nails once again the joyous<br \/>\npower-pop-like groove Joe found in <cite>Summer Song<\/cite>.  An<br \/>\nunusual and interesting touch in this use is Joe&#8217;s use of wordless<br \/>\nchoral singing as a counterpoint to the guitar.<\/p>\n<p>In <cite>Baroque<\/cite> Joe experiments with the idiom of classical<br \/>\nguitar.  His execution is good but the production is heavy-handed; I<br \/>\nthink it would have worked better without the effects.<\/p>\n<p><cite>Dweller On The Threshold<\/cite> is a Lovecraftian tone poem<br \/>\nthat is probably the closest approach to true speed metal in Joe&#8217;s oeuvre.<br \/>\nHe proves here that he could out-Metallica Metallica if he wanted to<br \/>\n(Kirk Hammet was an early student of his in the 1970s).  The atonal<br \/>\nalien from <cite>Enigmatic<\/cite> makes a cameo appearance.<\/p>\n<p><cite>Banano Mango<\/cite> previsits the word-beat rhythms we heard<br \/>\nearlier in <cite>Banano Mango II<\/cite>, but the guitar treatment is<br \/>\ndifferent in style.  Not as good, I don&#8217;t think. but it&#8217;s instructive<br \/>\nand interesting to have both versions included.<\/p>\n<p><cite>Dreaming #11<\/cite> takes us to another unusual place that<br \/>\ncan only be described as surrealist comedy funk.  The strain of sly,<br \/>\nzany humor that flavors a lot of Joe&#8217;s music is in full evidence<br \/>\nhere.<\/p>\n<p>The title of <cite>I am Become Death<\/cite> doubtless refers to Robert<br \/>\nOppennheimer&#8217;s famous quote from the Bhagavad-Gita at the first nuclear<br \/>\ntest in 1945. The piece is simultaneously grim, bathetic and jarring,<br \/>\na deliberately disjointed nightmare. On <cite>Saying Goodbye<\/cite> Joe sounds quite unlike himself and<br \/>\nso much like Jeff Beck in a quieter moment that I think this piece<br \/>\nmust be an intentional tribute.  The first disc then finishes with<br \/>\n<cite>Woodstock Jam<\/cite>, which is also utterly like anything else<br \/>\nJoe has ever recorded, sixteen minutes of atonal psychedelia that<br \/>\nplays like the soundtrack for a drug dream.<\/p>\n<p>The main thing the second disc demonstrates is that Joe plays his<br \/>\ntunes live with great fidelity to the studio versions, so I won&#8217;t<br \/>\nreview all of these separately here.<\/p>\n<h3>Joe Satriani (1995)<\/h3>\n<p>In contrast with the sunny vibe of <cite>The Extremist<\/cite>, this<br \/>\nalbum seems moody, sad, even depressed.  I have no hard information, but I<br \/>\nsuspect Joe might have been going through a rough couple of years as<br \/>\nthis one was recorded.<\/p>\n<p><cite>Cool #9<\/cite> <cite>If<\/cite>, and <cite>Down, Down, Down<\/cite><br \/>\nset the tone &mdash; deeply bluesy, well-executed, somehow rather<br \/>\ndark.<\/p>\n<p><cite>Luminous Flesh Giants<\/cite> is one of the standout tracks on<br \/>\nthis album &mdash; angry, powerful stuff and doubtless a big<br \/>\nlive-concert number.<\/p>\n<p><cite>S.M.F.<\/cite> returns to the deep introspective groove of the<br \/>\nfirst three tracks, burrowing into the classic 8-bar blues as though it&#8217;s a<br \/>\nrefuge from something.  One of the problems with this album is that these<br \/>\nfour tracks are all too similar and tend to blur together in one&#8217;s memory.<\/p>\n<p><cite>Look My Way<\/cite> is one of Joe&#8217;s occasional comedy numbers.  He<br \/>\nsings, badly.  But the composition is such that bad singing is sort of<br \/>\nappropriate.<\/p>\n<p><cite>Home<\/cite> is a surprising island of calm and beauty.  It&#8217;s<br \/>\nthe refuge that a lot of the rest of this album seems to be looking for,<br \/>\nand a standout track.<\/p>\n<p><cite>Moroccan Sunset<\/cite> sounds a little happier, too.  The<br \/>\nmelody line is indeed middle-Eastern flavored in spots.  The rhythm<br \/>\nguitars share the dark, fuzzed-out flavor we hear in many of the other<br \/>\narrangements on this album.  Nevertheless this is another standout<br \/>\ntrack.<\/p>\n<p>In <cite>Killer Bee Bop<\/cite> Joe seems to be trying to capture<br \/>\nsome of the flavor of bebop jazz &mdash; the opening base line<br \/>\ncertainly suggests that.  This is a fast, noisy track, interesting<br \/>\nbut at times rushed and incoherent-sounding.<\/p>\n<p>The first section of <cite>Slow Down Blues<\/cite> slides even<br \/>\ndeeper into the blues idiom, with a spare and mostly acoustic<br \/>\narrangement featuring a dialogue between Joe&#8217;s understated electric<br \/>\nlead and a blues harmonica.  All this recalls <cite>New Blues<\/cite><br \/>\nfrom the previous album, and seems deeply sad.  Things pick up some<br \/>\nin the last four minutes as the track launches into a steady electric<br \/>\nboogie with a big finish.<\/p>\n<p><cite>(You&#8217;re) My World<\/cite> is another simple, effective tune<br \/>\nthat seems (like <cite>Home<\/cite>) to express some kind of peace or<br \/>\nresolution.  The effect is very beautiful and a standout track.<\/p>\n<p>The album ends with <cite>Sittin&#8217; Round<\/cite>, another slow and<br \/>\nsad blues reminiscent of the first section of <cite>Slow Down<br \/>\nBlues<\/cite>.<\/p>\n<p>Emotionally, Joe had nowhere to go but up after this album.<\/p>\n<h3>Crystal Planet (1998)<\/h3>\n<p>And up he goes, in what is certainly his best album since<br \/>\n<cite>Surfing With The Alien<\/cite>.  Whatever troubles informed<br \/>\n<cite>Joe Satriani<\/cite> are gone; he seems to reach a new high in<br \/>\nenergy and inventiveness here.<\/p>\n<p>The album opens strong with <cite>Up in the Sky<\/cite>, a fast and<br \/>\ntight little number built around an odd guitar lick with an almost<br \/>\nsurf-rock feel to it.  The tastiness continues with <cite>House Full<br \/>\nof Bullets<\/cite> and <cite>Crystal Planet<\/cite>, which don&#8217;t break any<br \/>\nparticularly new ground but are well-composed works that deliver the kind<br \/>\nof virtuosity Joe&#8217;s fans have come to expect.<\/p>\n<p><cite>Love Thing<\/cite> slows the pace a little to do a more<br \/>\nmelodic exploration in the mode of <cite>Home<\/cite> or <cite>(You&#8217;re) <\/p>\n<p>My World<\/cite> from the previous album.  It&#8217;s followed by<br \/>\n<cite>Trundrumbalind<\/cite> which moves a bit up-tempo again but<br \/>\nsustains great intensity of feeling and is one of the standout tracks<br \/>\nof this album.  The last minute is especially interesting.<\/p>\n<p><cite>Lights of Heaven<\/cite> starts off quietly, but the<br \/>\nfanfare-like bit at about 1:13 leads into one of Joe&#8217;s best sustained<br \/>\nstretches of composition ever, one in which occasional hushed stretches<br \/>\nserve to build tension for soaring guitar lines that resolve them wonderfully.<br \/>\nThe shimmering finale in the last 40 seconds is magnificent.  This is<br \/>\npossibly the strongest single track on the album.<\/p>\n<p><cite>Raspberry Jam Delta Vee<\/cite> is not quite as impressive,<br \/>\nbut it delivers the goods.  The break using string and cello tambres<br \/>\nabout four minutes in is unusual, and the track finishes strong with<br \/>\ndual leads and and interesting use of what sounds like ring<br \/>\nmodulators.<\/p>\n<p><cite>Ceremony<\/cite> returns to the up-tempo pace and<br \/>\narpeggio-rich solos typical of the first three tracks, but there is<br \/>\nnothing especially distinguishing about it.  <cite>With Jupiter In<br \/>\nMind<\/cite>, on the other hand, is a standout track with a strong and<br \/>\nattractive melody on which Joe works some interesting transformations<br \/>\nbefore returning to the opening version.  Fat rhythm guitars back up<br \/>\na powerful finale.<\/p>\n<p><cite>Secret Prayer<\/cite> is merely ordinary for this album,<br \/>\nwhich is to say it is better than most guitarists could manage<br \/>\non their best days ever.  <cite>Train of Angels<\/cite> opens interestingly<br \/>\nwith military-style drumming and remains tasty even after switching to<br \/>\na traditional rock beat; the second solo beginning at about 2:00 is<br \/>\nespecially nice.  <cite>A Piece of Liquid <\/cite> is quiet and restful,<br \/>\nmaking interesting use of a catchy South-American-flavored rhythm.<\/p>\n<p><cite>Psycho Monkey<\/cite> is a distortion-fest with a deliberately<br \/>\nheavy attack; the dog-whistle feedback at the end is reminiscent of the<br \/>\ntitle track from <cite>Flying In A Blue Dream<\/cite>.<\/p>\n<p><cite>Time<\/cite> is a clever tone poem in which the staccato<br \/>\n4-chord figure the rhythm guitars repeat seems intended to evoke a<br \/>\nticking clock.  There&#8217;s a lot more going on, here, though, and it<br \/>\nrepays several listens to find out what.<\/p>\n<p><cite>Z.Z.&#8217;s Song<\/cite> ends the album with a resonant acoustic solo<br \/>\npiece that seems to use silence as much as sound.<\/p>\n<p>There really isn&#8217;t a weak track on this whole album, which is especially<br \/>\nimpressive since it runs to 15 of them.  It&#8217;s probably the right one<br \/>\nto buy second, after <cite>Surfing With The Alien<\/cite>.<\/p>\n<h3>Engines of Creation (2000)<\/h3>\n<p>The title of this album seems to be a reference to to K. Eric<br \/>\nDrexler&#8217;s seminal book on nanotechnology; the cover art and<br \/>\nthe song titles suggest that Joe had a lot of SFnal imagery in mind<br \/>\nwhen composing it.  Despite that promising start, a lot of Satriani<br \/>\nfans would say this album shouldn&#8217;t have been made.  In it, Joe seems<br \/>\nto be trying to understand electronica and house music.  The result is, alas,<br \/>\ncold and mechanical-sounding in comparison to the rest of his work;<br \/>\ndrum machines and synthesizers almost drown out his guitar.<\/p>\n<p>Despite that, this album has some excellent moments.  And even when<br \/>\nit doesn&#8217;t work, I think Joe deserves praise for being willing to take some<br \/>\nrisks.  Another <cite>Crystal Planet<\/cite> or <cite>Surfing With The<br \/>\nAlien<\/cite> would have been more of a crowd-pleaser &mdash; but at<br \/>\nthis point Joe could probably crank out ordinary guitar virtuosity in<br \/>\nhis sleep and would not necessarily have grown as a musician by taking<br \/>\nthat easy path.<\/p>\n<p><cite>Devil&#8217;s Slide<\/cite> tells you right away you are not in for the<br \/>\nusual, with its drum machine and synthesizer-led attack. Parts of it achieve<br \/>\na chill, haunting beauty.  <cite>Flavor Crystal 7<\/cite> is very similar,<br \/>\nbut with a more up-front guitar line that makes it more interesting.<br \/>\nBoth tracks take us far from the rock\/blues\/metal roots of Joe&#8217;s style;<br \/>\nhe displays the superb musicianship we&#8217;d expect, but the results seem<br \/>\nat times unnervingly soulless and antiseptic.<\/p>\n<p><cite>Borg Sex<\/cite> is more of the same, with a growling guitar<br \/>\nline that manages (probably not by accident) to sound rather like<br \/>\nindustrial noise.  Joe seems to use this one fairly frequently in<br \/>\nconcert.<\/p>\n<p><cite>Until We Say Goodbye<\/cite>, by contrast, is much more like a<br \/>\nnormal Satriani track; some superfluous electronic effects in the<br \/>\nbackground fail to step on an appealing and rather jazz-tinged<br \/>\nmelody. The pizzicato strings in the last eight seconds are a nice<br \/>\ntouch.<\/p>\n<p><cite>Attack<\/cite> puts us right back in the territory of<br \/>\n<cite>Devil&#8217;s Slide<\/cite>, which it rather resembles.  The break<br \/>\nabout two minutes in, ornamented with little sequencer bits and<br \/>\ndrum-machine licks, is probably Joe&#8217;s most effective use of<br \/>\nelectronica idiom.<\/p>\n<p><cite>Champagne?<\/cite> is a bit of clowning in which glassy synth<br \/>\nvoices are set against a bouncing baseline and bluesy guitar.  It<br \/>\nchanges style abruptly at about 2:04 when the drum machines turn on,<br \/>\nbut returns to being an appealingly silly romp in the last three<br \/>\nminutes.  The last section changes styles again, offering us a jazzy<br \/>\nsolo with beautiful arpeggios and an odd roots-rock sort of<br \/>\nfinish vaguely reminiscent of Creedence.<\/p>\n<p><cite>Clouds Race Across the Sky<\/cite> is a surprise and a<br \/>\nstandout, laying a beautifully simple guitar line over an infectious<br \/>\nSouth-American-flavored rhythm track.  The effect is tranquil and<br \/>\nlovely.<\/p>\n<p><cite>The Power Cosmic 2000<\/cite> is a two-part invention.  In it,<br \/>\nJoe seems to be trying to fuse electronica influences into his basic<br \/>\nstyle (the first guitar line in part two will remind you of <cite>The<br \/>\nMystical Potato Head Groove Thing<\/cite>) but succeeds mainly in<br \/>\nsounding chilly and remote.  By contrast, the synthesizer<br \/>\ninstrumentation of <cite>Slow And Easy<\/cite> fails to completely<br \/>\nsuppress some moments of quiet beauty.<\/p>\n<p><cite>Engines of Creation<\/cite> is a gradually building crescendo<br \/>\nthat unaccountably cuts out just as it should be reaching a climax.<br \/>\nToo bad; there are some good moments on the way there, and the track<br \/>\ndoes better at integrating synthesizers with guitar and base than most<br \/>\nof went before.  But, like the album as a whole, the track is a<br \/>\nbrave experiment that doesn&#8217;t end well.<\/p>\n<p>This is still the most difficult Satriani album to enjoy, and may be<br \/>\nfor hard-core fans and completists only.  But I like it better than I<br \/>\ndid when I first heard it.  It will take several listenings before<br \/>\nyou can get past the electronic clutter to what Joe is trying to<br \/>\nachieve, but doing so has some rewards.<\/p>\n<h3>Strange Beautiful Music (2002)<\/h3>\n<p>If a comparative failure like <cite>Engines of Creation<\/cite> was<br \/>\nwhat Joe needed to grow, this album tells us it was worth it.  I think<br \/>\nit&#8217;s his best ever, equalling <cite>Crystal Planet<\/cite> and<br \/>\n<cite>Surfing With The Alien<\/cite> for creativity and melodic<br \/>\ninvention and showing a maturity and grace neither previous album<br \/>\ncan match.<\/p>\n<p><cite>Oriental Melody<\/cite> continues Joe&#8217;s flirtation with modal<br \/>\nscales and time signatures derived from Middle Eastern and Indian<br \/>\nmusic.  It&#8217;s a good start to the album, which puts some creative<br \/>\ndistance between Joe and his roots as a rock player.<\/p>\n<p><cite>Belly Dancer<\/cite> moves back towards rock rhythms, but an<br \/>\neastern touch is still present in the melody line.  The track centers<br \/>\non lovely series of arpeggios at about 3:08.  The sitar tambre that Joe<br \/>\nused so effectively in tracks like <cite>Lords of Karma<\/cite> reappears<br \/>\nas a nice bit of background color towards the end.<\/p>\n<p>We get a third beautiful melody in <cite>Starry Night<\/cite>,<br \/>\nwhich though stylistically reminiscent of <cite>Home<\/cite> from the<br \/>\n<cite>Extremist<\/cite> album is nicely original.<\/p>\n<p><cite>Chords of Life<\/cite> is themed around a nice bit of<br \/>\nacoustic-guitar rhythm work that appears in it twice and dominates<br \/>\nthe finale.  This is a crisp and satisfying little number in<br \/>\nwhich the electric lead gets its licks in but, for once, takes a back<br \/>\nseat to other elements of the composition.<\/p>\n<p><cite>Mind Storms<\/cite> is more in the conventional Satriani<br \/>\nidiom, and a fine example of same.  The alien from<br \/>\n<cite>Enigmatic<\/cite> makes a brief reappearance at about 2:00<br \/>\nin.<\/p>\n<p><cite>Sleep Walk<\/cite> covers a Santo &amp; Johnny hit from 1959,<br \/>\narchetypal syrupy fifties pop.  I have a strong personal aversion to<br \/>\nthis particular sound, but there is no denying that Joe (with some<br \/>\nhelp from, of all people, Robert Fripp) nails the style dead-on. If<br \/>\nit has to be done at all, it should be done this well.<\/p>\n<p><cite>New Last Jam<\/cite> is another superior Satriani slice of<br \/>\nfretboard frenzy, unremarkable only because it&#8217;s jostling so much<br \/>\ngood material on this album.  <cite>Mountain Song<\/cite>, immediately<br \/>\nfollowing, is even better.  His normal idiom has never sounded hotter.<\/p>\n<p><cite>What Breaks A Heart<\/cite> begins with what seems to be an<br \/>\nexperiment in vox humana guitar; the effect is almost like wordless<br \/>\nsinging.  The middle section that begins at 1:19 builds to reggae<br \/>\nrhythms and more vox-humana playfulness.  The whole finishes with a<br \/>\nvery pretty ride-out as Joe riffs away with gleeful zest.<\/p>\n<p><cite>Seven String<\/cite> takes us back to basic rock&#8217;n&#8217;roll crunch<br \/>\nwith a somewhat Southern flavor &mdash; one can imagine Lynrd Skynrd or<br \/>\n.38 Special playing this, if they had ever come within a light year of<br \/>\nhaving the chops to try.  It&#8217;s followed by <cite>Hill Groove<\/cite>, a<br \/>\nbluesy piece that features some particularly nice interplay between<br \/>\nlead guitar and electric base.<\/p>\n<p><cite>The Traveller<\/cite> has something of a prog-rock feel to it;<br \/>\nlisten for the nice use of harmonics at about 1:58.  And the album<br \/>\nfinishes strong with <cite>Journey<\/cite>, another melodic and excellent<br \/>\ntrack without a waste motion in it.<\/p>\n<p>The music on this album is so consistently good that it&#8217;s hard to<br \/>\npick standouts.  Pressed, I&#8217;d have to pick <cite>Mind Storms<\/cite> and<br \/>\n<cite>Seven String<\/cite>, but there are several other tracks that give<br \/>\nthese a serious tussle.<\/p>\n<p>With this album, Joe seems to have almost completely banished his<br \/>\noccasional tendency to get lost in his technique.  All of these tracks<br \/>\nhave a well-seasoned restraint about them, to a degree that was only<br \/>\ntrue of exceptional pieces like <cite>Crushing Day<\/cite> in his<br \/>\nearlier work.<\/p>\n<h3>Is There Love In Space (2004)<\/h3>\n<p><cite>Is There Love In Space<\/cite> is a big contrast with<br \/>\n<cite>Strange Beautiful Music<\/cite>.  It&#8217;s a neoprimitive crunchfest<br \/>\nof fat, distorted rhythm guitars that begs to be played at<br \/>\nroom-filling volume.  Satriani is out to remind us that, by damn, he<br \/>\nis a <em>rock<\/em> guitarist &mdash; and he succeeds.<\/p>\n<p>The first track, <cite>Gnaah!<\/cite>, is a piece of sly humor.  You<br \/>\ncan hear the title gnaah as a repeated rising note in the song&#8217;s main<br \/>\nlick.  <cite>Up In Flames<\/cite> is a loose bluesy howl that has good<br \/>\nmoments but some tendency to fall into mere noodling.  Much in these<br \/>\nwill sound familiar to long-time fans.<\/p>\n<p>Track three, <cite>Hands in The Air<\/cite>, is a standout &mdash; a<br \/>\nstomping, shouting rock&#8217;n&#8217;roll rave-up that has &#8220;arena-filler&#8221; written<br \/>\non it in letters of fire.  Fuck yeah, turn those Marshalls up to 11!<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s interesting to contrast <cite>Hands in The Air<\/cite> with<br \/>\n<cite>Luminous Flesh Giants<\/cite> from the <cite>Joe Satriani<\/cite><br \/>\nalbum.  These two tracks are stylistically and structurally similar, but<br \/>\nwhat a huge difference in emotional tone!  Where the older one is<br \/>\ndark, brooding and ominous, the newer one is a big joyful noise.<\/p>\n<p>In <cite>Lifestyle<\/cite> Satriani accomplishes a personal first by<br \/>\nby managing to sing without sucking.  His voice actually sounds good<br \/>\nrun through a chorus box over a basic three-chord romp.  The lyrics<br \/>\nare pretty funny, too.<\/p>\n<p>The title track <cite>Is There Love In Space<\/cite>, gives us a<br \/>\nquieter and more reflective moment, especially in the final section<br \/>\nabout 4:00 in which takes us back towards Joe&#8217;s jazz influences.<br \/>\n<cite>If I Could Fly<\/cite> continues in a similar vein, firming up to<br \/>\na steady rock groove around which Joe dances in trademark fashion.<br \/>\nThere&#8217;s nothing especially novel here but the effect is quite<br \/>\npleasant.<\/p>\n<p><cite>The Souls Of Distortion<\/cite> takes us back to the Land of the<br \/>\nMonster Stomp, at a slower tempo than <cite>Hands in The Air<\/cite><br \/>\nbut with tasty use of a wah-wah pedal.  The fading feedback blare at the<br \/>\nend is just right.<\/p>\n<p>Look Up is lyrical and quiet, resembling <cite>Rubina&#8217;s<br \/>\nSong<\/cite><cite> and <\/cite><cite>Always With Me, Always With You<\/cite> in flavor.<\/p>\n<p><cite>I Like The Rain<\/cite>, unfortunately, demonstrates that<br \/>\n<cite>Lifestyle<\/cite> was probably a fluke; Joe sings and sucks.  You&#8217;ll<br \/>\nbe reminded of <cite>Ride<\/cite> from <cite>Flying In A Blue Dream<\/cite>,<br \/>\nbut he did it better it the first time.<\/p>\n<p><cite>Searching<\/cite> is another standout track.  It opens with a<br \/>\nhypnotic ostinato reminiscent of Ted Nugent&#8217;s<br \/>\n<cite>Stranglehold<\/cite> and holds to that line relentlessly amidst<br \/>\nflurries of manic noodling and blares of feedback.  You get the<br \/>\nfeeling this was recorded as a late-night jam-session with everybody<br \/>\nhalf wasted, and you are right there with them.<\/p>\n<p><cite>Bamboo<\/cite> will remind you of <cite>Midnight<\/cite> from<br \/>\n<cite>Surfing With The Alien<\/cite> or <cite>Tears In The Rain<\/cite><br \/>\nfrom <cite>The Extremist<\/cite>.  There&#8217;s some interesting and subtle<br \/>\nuse of what sounds like reverse echo at about 3:25 in.<\/p>\n<p>In some ways this album doesn&#8217;t compare well with the previous one;<br \/>\nthere is less variety and originality here than there was in<br \/>\n<cite>Strange Beautiful Music<\/cite>.  It&#8217;s got more in the way of<br \/>\nsimple, turn-it-up-loud visceral thrills, though.  If Joe was out to<br \/>\nprove that he can rock the house down better than 3\/4ths of the<br \/>\nspoiled children who call themselves &#8216;metal&#8217; acts, he sure<br \/>\nsucceeded.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I like to listen to instrumental electric guitar, and have a very large collection of the genre from the pioneering Jeff Beck albums of the 1970s forward, and including most of the output of Jeff Beck, Steve Morse, Eric Johnson, Steve Vai, Gary Hoey, Marc Bonilla, and half a dozen other guitar virtuosi. The seldom-disputed&hellip; <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"http:\/\/esr.ibiblio.org\/?p=179\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Appreciating Joe Satriani<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-179","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-culture","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/esr.ibiblio.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/179","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/esr.ibiblio.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/esr.ibiblio.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/esr.ibiblio.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/esr.ibiblio.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=179"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/esr.ibiblio.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/179\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":720,"href":"http:\/\/esr.ibiblio.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/179\/revisions\/720"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/esr.ibiblio.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=179"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/esr.ibiblio.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=179"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/esr.ibiblio.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=179"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}