Swedish, Brooklyn-based multi-instrumentalist-composer-Pink Pamphlet label owner Adrian Knight offers about 100 minutes of guitar explorations travelogue on his solo album «Fly By Night». Knight says: «Although I’m a much better pianist than guitarist, I’ve often found my relatively poor ‘fretboard awareness’ to be a valuable asset in terms of focusing my intuitive hearing away from my more analytical hearing».

«Fly By Night» suggests an insight into a composer daily routine and his works-in-progress, based on his experiments on the effects-laden guitars. The album  collects home recordings made in Brooklyn, New Haven and Stockholm between 2009 and 2018. Knight recorded his raw and intuitive sonic ideas as they arrive, «chance moments of layered sequences coalescing into harmonic contexts». He charges all the nine pieces with elusive veins of navigating in a time zone outside real time, fitting very late nights, imaginary or real flights and dreams.

«Fly By Night» begins with three minimalist, soundscapes – the atmospheric  «Ohio Standard (for Scott)»; linked organically into the celestial «Pink Pamphlet» and the darker «Comblé», a prototype for an orchestral work. The 27-minutes «Abide With Me» dives even deeper with its slow-evolving, layered, dreamscape.

«Downwind» and «Midnight Zone» offer richer spectrum of sounds, including voices, Fender Rhodes in addition to the gentle, atmospheric guitar lines. The title-piece returns to to the minimalist vein, but distils even further its sonic presence only to the bare sonic contours.  The second, prototype for an orchestral work «Till Minne Av» charges this soundscape with a fragile, spiritual layer. The last «Pink Pamphlet 5» with the twisted, processed sax sounds of David Lackner surprises with breezy guitar lines that introduce some sun light to this experimental but highly accessible nocturnal travelogue.

Eyal Hareuveni

Adrian Knight (g, v, Rhodes, perc, tape, digital treatments); David Lackner (s)