Jon Collin - The Nature

Reissue of a long-out-of-print Jon Collin special originally snuck out into the world in 2017. Though Collin had already been closing in on a decade of near-constant activity when The Nature was first released, he was very much still a young gun in the grand tradition of American Primitive styled guitar virtuosos (no doubting the guy has found his place in that canon now), which makes these seven astutely framed pieces all that more impressive. The recordings themselves err towards the lo-fi of course, but the sound is one of the classics being ushered into a new age, a remarkably accomplished set of avant-inclined blues-derived improvisations that align slide guitar impressionism with various found sound overlays, as if the outside world is falling in upon an oblivious Collin rapturously lost in the mournful blues smog. It's on a record like this where Collin reminds me most of the great Jack Rose, a guitarist who brought his experiences in one realm over into another (let's say hardcore>>>blues/folk) and thus rendering it in a slightly different glow: Rose always felt to me like the enfant terrible of this tradition. Collin is similarly progressive, a master of the space but not entirely beholden to it - the little touches of diegetic sound, of birds, wind, weather, the room itself, a punk-like intrusion on the cleaned-up, prettification of the blues. In that sense, The Nature, as the title would imply, feels like a true expression of its artist.