James Elkington and Nathan Salsburg Collaborate for Third Album of Guitar Duets, All Gist, Out April 12th
Your favorite duo of guitar polymaths is back with All Gist, the long awaited follow-up to 2015’s Ambsace (PoB-021).
James and Nathan’s third album of instrumental guitar recordings pushes their sinuous compositions into labyrinthine new shapes, interlocking and interlocutory, supported by a cast of stellar collaborators. Interwoven among the dazzling original pieces is a fascinating array of covers, ranging from traditional Breton dance tunes to a deconstruction of Neneh Cherry’s monumental “Buffalo Stance,” which you can hear today.
All Gist is out on April 12, 2024. Preview and pre-order below (all preorders include a download of the single).
“Buffalo Stance” is a song likely no one aside from Elkington and Salsburg would ever have thought for a moment could or should be made into fodder for two acoustic guitars. “While playing a few rounds of Neneh Cherry’s transcendent ‘Buffalo Stance’ for my toddler, I was struck for the first time (at least since c. 1988) by how fantastic some of its riffs are,” Salsburg recounts. “I suggested to Jim that we work up an arrangement for two guitars. Jim was initially doubtful — it’s a lot of rapping — but within an hour he sent back a one-guitar demo of most of the constituent melodic elements. It sent me into paroxysms of joy, only exceeded by the eventual thrill of sitting down together and hammering out our collaborative version.”
“Party Zone.”
Acknowledgments
Their melody-first sensibilities are perfectly suited to each other … playfully complex guitar work that sounds as if it was tossed off in an afternoon of whiskey and laughs. – NPR
An intoxicating, intricate web … Wherever Salsburg and Elkington go, it’s always a pleasure. – Aquarium Drunkard
Sounds like winter has always been approaching, like Indian summer never quite fades, like fall isn’t built around loss.– Stereogum
James and Nathan have been busy since their last duo record.
Elkington recently released Me Neither, an album of his take on library music. He plays guitar with Jeff Tweedy, Brokeback, Eleventh Dream Day and beyond, and is a producer, working with the likes of Joan Shelley, Steve Gunn, Jake Xerxes Fussell and more. Salsburg is known for his own solo albums, most recently releasing the third album in his Landwerk series of compositions built around samples drawn from early 20th-century phonograph records, as well as recording and performing regularly with Joan Shelley, and his work as Curator for the Alan Lomax Archive.
