THE CRIMSON GUITAR

After hearing Fernando Perdomo's full length album "Out to Sea 2" released earlier this year, and with the sort of lukewarm feeling I got from it, I wasn't necessarily looking forward to new releases from him, but seeing that he has taken on King Crimson tracks, and the choices he made to cover on an acoustic guitar, I was interested once again.

"The Crimson Guitar" is what the alternative title says it is, A Tribute to King Crimson. The tracks are all fairly short, thus taking the main melodies of the songs and playing them quite perfectly on a solo classical guitar. And, wow, they translate over to that solo medium so well, and Perdono plays them with an obvious love for the melody. He selected some perfect melodies to be played by his thoughtful guitar. There are the obvious choices like "Islands", "I Talk to the Wind", "Book of Saturday" and "Peace (A Theme)". But then there are some that are not so obvious like "Starless", "Prince Rupert Awakes", "Erudite Eyes" and "The Court of the Crimson King". But each one is played with quite emotion and respect for the melodic aspect of each one.

"I Talk to the Wind" also includes part of the instrumental theme incorporated into the solo version and "Formentera Lady" does the same to an even larger extent, adding in some percussive taps on the guitar to add forward movement to the main melody. "Starless" is the longest cover here at 4 minutes, again using the instrumental themes as well as the vocal melody, utilizing the lower strings to recreate a bass line to keep the acoustic guitar version moving during the places where the melodic notes have a longer duration. Of course, in this cover he only treats the first part of the song, as to attempt to do the long instrumental section would have probably resulted in mess, however, he does start to lean into the bass pattern of it before it fades.

Most of the tracks here stay around the 2 to 3 minute range, there being 10 tracks and only 22 minutes of run time on this EP. But that is okay because much longer may have worn out the welcome, it ends up being the right length in both the individual tracks and the overall length.

Perdomo says that he wrote these arrangements when he was a tween, just discovering the music of King Crimson through his first purchase of the music which he bought out of a discount bin. The 3 albums that introduced him to their incredible music were "Lizard", "Islands" and "USA". Obviously, he must have loved what he heard, because there are tracks not on these albums, so he must have gone back for more. The fact that he is recording the same versions he arranged back then as a man now approaching 40 years old is pretty amazing. The covers really do what they were intended to do, to emphasize the beauty of these tracks, but also the complexities that are laid bare in these solo renditions.

These are very enjoyable tracks and the EP definitely shows Perdomo's respect and love for the melodies that are included on here. The stripped down versions are gorgeous, and definitely honor and respect the work of King Crimson. I have a new respect for this artist from this simple EP, and easily rate it with 4 stars.