Mark Gibson – Edge of Nowhere & Persistence of Vision

As many of you are aware I like, wherever possible, to try and highlight players from the UK and Europe for the simple fact that there are a plethora of talented guitarists who deserve to have their profile raised, and the coverage seems a little less than their US compatriots recieve.

Mark Gibson from Northumberland right here in the UK is just such a deserving artist;

Having started playing Classical guitar around the age of 12, within a year he was performing at School Concerts around the Region, and was subsequently asked to join the local Classical Guitar Ensemble. More concerts quickly followed (including some as far abroad as St.Petersburg in Russia) but the allure of distortion and slippery phrasing beckoned and upon hearing the formidable Nuno Bettencourt perform on Pornograffiti at the age of 16, he picked up the electric guitar. Although currently without a band, he has been a member in several over the years but the extra creative time this affords him has clearly served him well – he’s also a talented artist and pianist!

Persistance of Vision was Mark’s album debut and in typically modest fashion he describes it thusly:

Persistence Of Vision is pretty much a shred-fest, back in the day when I was heavily into Vai and Satriani style playing. It was my first time recording, and so the mix is a bit rough and the programmed drums are awful hehe:)

But it’s good fun.

Personally both the production and drums are really very acceptable….and the playing?

Mark does a fantastic job of capturing the essential spirit of Vai and Satriani, which isn’t to say one should write him off as a mere clone because although at this stage in his stylistic development he does borrow heavily from both those pre-eminent Masters, he has his own musical identity which incorporates some of their idiosyncratic approaches rather than sublimating the former for the latter.

Persistence of Vision reveals, amongst other attributes, Mark’s truly formidable technique which although has certain Vai angularities at this time, is still a cut above the accepted norm for Instrumental Rock Guitarists, and merits a discussion of it’s own. Listening to PoV one can’t help but be cognizant of the fact that while he can of course pick rapidly, glide around the neck with that particular elegance in tapped and legato runs and  sweep with aplomb he has a great control of the instrument during slower passages. If there’s more than the occasional nod of the head to his heroes then it’s an authentic homage and I can’t find fault there.

Wasting little time with preludes The Eternal Thinker has a brief, clean-toned ostinato figure give way to some positively effervescent, careering lead passages before drums and a surprisingly heavy rhythm guitar decide brevity is the soul of wit and move quickly on to Chemical Forest. At this stage I would ask to be forgiven for another Vai comparison – in my defence it’s a relatively scare occurrence that I hear any artist borrowing from him without sounding like a pale imitation owing to the complexity of the material however…Mr Gibson manges to do so in a very credible manner. Shredding aside, layered harmonies, melodies played with harmonics and gorgeous clean tones point clearly towards 90′s era “Little Stevie” while an adroit hand with the whammy bar, and a certain attitude in his playing which is at once playful and sophisticated all combine to create very impressive musical expressions indeed.

Fall from Heaven and Spirit of Life are more buoyant, positive tracks and while Fall from Heaven tends towards the more uptempo, Spirit of Life is a more thoughtful and contemplative piece who’s ariose, slippery chordal construction suffers slightly as the drums are most noticeable at this juncture and their timbre simply compliments a rockier approach.  A World Away from You sees a return of the distorted guitar with some really evocative neck-pickup melodies over a shimmering chordal backdrop – as a direct contrast to Spirit of Life the drums are much more fitting in this context, and the delayed, tapped, whammy-bar’d lead work, whilst reminiscent, is still superb.

Blues-inspired, chaotic leads and a surfing-style rhythm make Rainbow Tears the perfect place to bring in the wah-wah and souped-up Billy Gibbons style repeating licks…so he does! Adding to the familar formulae with some spoken words lurking in the background, some slightly odd meters and a sprinkling of good old “Right in your Face” speed licks before a goofball ending where the tempo staggers, slows, and then takes off again for a reprise of the clean intro this is absolutely classic shred of the sort that blew so many socks away upon it’s arrival.  Too much of a good thing is never enough and Ordinary Day’s unison-bend melodies, octaves and hyper-blues soloing start at a frenetic pace then blister the skin of your fingers and makes way for even more super-high tech stun guitar in the form of Mind Trap.

Don’t misunderstand me – I can’t criticise the ever-superlative playing, the musicianship or the compositions…I love shred guitar as much as anyone and at this point in the album I am quite honestly a little exhausted. This is all humorous, lively and inventive playing (as well as damn good fun) but a couple of changes of pace would have made the overall experience a little easier to bear…..To Mark’s credit Persistence of Vision clocks in at over 50 minutes which is on the long side for an instrumental album and to maintain the constant giddy rush at this level of playing is a great feat.

Promised Land continues with the same overall theme, whereas Don’t Let Me Go is a slightly different proposition. In an album of monumental chops and gonzo leads, the ambient introduction and layered clean guitars (although used on other tracks to great effect) have a distinctly edgy feel which lifts the track into a more personal representation. There are still some highly impressive moments of finesse but the overall effect is of taking a much needed breath before Silver Pearls arrives – this is the album’s last grandstand moment and doesn’t dissapoint for chops, cleverly-concieved musical ideas, some hooks and those obstuse odd-meter, disonant moments which catch you unawares in the midst of a consonant melody. Reflection layers delay and reverb with some harmonic tapping over a simple progression and intelligent use of effects to generate a more soothing approach which stops short of being ambient but is a relief after trying to keep up with some of the lightspeed melodic ideas from earlier.

Edge of Nowhere is far more representative of Mark Gibson in my humble opinion. Once more in his words:

Edge Of Nowhere is more about songs and the music is a bit more laid back

Edge of Nowhere (the track) brings some familiar delays and reverbs alongside a more personalised clean tone to create a drone over which Mark sprinkles some very much more personalised and impressive lines which I have to compare to (and I don’t say this lightly) the late, great Shawn Lane. The tone here is very much more woody and organic with his wonderful Conklin Sidewinder clearly used to very great effect. The use of space and a willingness to eschew more busy and complicated compositions speaks volumes about a player that has made great strides since his debut.

Slip Away continues to reveal more of Mark’s gentle and thoughtful side – many of the guitars used are clean or barely distorted and some of the compositional ideas call to mind the earthy, honest approaches of Steve Morse. There are a couple of moments here where I honestly said “****!” upon hearing some of the solo lines because whilst much less frequently used than on Persistence of Vision, the clarity of production, more restrained tone and let me be honest….extremely impressive chops are hallmarks of a very gifted player to my mind. Listen to me has moments of his more complex edge and a glimpse of earlier influences but once again,  restraint coupled with fire-breathing chops and a willingness to play for the song commingle to create a more enjoyable experience.

Small World Pt1 did at first bring to mind some of the sparkling, ethereal moments of the first album initially but I shortly realised that the particular chordal approach had become subsumed into Mark’s style to serve the cause of music on his terms – a fast moving and unpredictable progression that breathes and speaks far more clearly for the lack of clutter. My Everything shares elements of that fusion-esque style I alluded to earlier (oh hell, I’ll come out with it…..Shawn Lane!) but defuses the comparison with some effective tapped segments inbetween the hellacious picking and beautiful tones as he plays some great lines over the changes which once more twist and turn whilst defying the expected course.

Edge of Nowhere absolutely supports Mark’s comments that it’s a more laid back album – Unbreakable is a case in point as it takes a more familiar ballad and enlivens proceedings with a sophisticated harmonic edge, and the full gamut of emotive techniques from polished vibrato, volume swells and bends to a great sense of dynamics. Perhaps a trifle prone to displaying his incredible chops on some tracks (to be fair, so would I)  it’s here where Mark proves he can play equally well without doing so and although there’s a brief moment of picked impossibility, it comes as a great release of tension.

Fragile is that great pleasure of many a guitarist’s album – the instrumental without a guitar that shows exactly what they are capable of. Entirely played on keyboards it proves to be ambient but strongly harmonic whereas compositionally it’s a succinct statement of intent which just goes to show how strongly talented Mark is as a musician, which could be all too easy to overlook given his ability. The guitar makes a return in You Already Know and Mark dips once more into his travel trunk of licks to produce some fluid legato lines quite unlike the flurries of picking we are familiar with. Featuring the guitar a little more prominently  (although taste retains a level of  check) provides a nice divergence from the established feel thus far and his expertise in such that even with a slightly more obvious rock edge it never falls into the technique/cliche trap.

Another Day is a song of a type I call “The Triumphant Ballad” – it’s not melancholic but it has a powerful emotive edge, inspirative melodies and for preference, some rapid playing to contrast with the outpouring of the player’s heart…please note that all boxes are ticked in this case, and once more I find myself wondering how I can pick up some of the phenomenal picked lines. Of all the tracks on Edge of Nowhere, Breathe draws more manifest parallels with  Persistence of Vision except for a greater breadth of musical vision. There are a number of fretboard moments of great rapidity and complexity tempered with a sense of the impact that even a single note can have with lends them much great credibility then their (admittedly ridiculous) technique could on it’s own.

More than it all features a completely unaffected piano and whilst lamentably brief shows yet another facet of this great musician who apparently grows in stature by the year to not only encompass other instruments, but to compose distinctly on them. Timeless was the first track of Mark’s I ever encountered and his more contemporary fusion/rock style impressed me from the start. As mentioned before the tone, the technique, the musical ideas….all are present and accounted for – there’s nothing hugely divergent from the tracks already reviewed, but it’s entirely representative of his approach, and equally formidable.

Closing the album with a track that collates all his approaches is a bold move – there’s bare naked piano, ambient clean tones, fusion and of course some dexterous spinning of bewildering lines but Reprise incorporates them all into a concise statement with aplomb and a fleeting moment where a clean guitar reprises the melody standing bereft of backing brings us to a close.

Mark is hard at work on his third album and I for one will be buying it as soon as it’s available – his growth as a musican, melodic sensibilities and let me emphasise this, truly outstanding technical abilties should soon be more widely recognised.

Edge of Nowhere

Rating:

Persistence of Vision

Rating:

http://www.markgibson.moonfruit.com/

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