Aonghus McEvoy is an Irish, Dublin-based experimental guitarist, who has played with musicians such as Annette Krebs, Ricardo Jacinto, Adam Pultz Melbye and Damo Suzuki. Aonghus’ long-term projects include a duo with chaotic synthesist Tristan Clutterbuck and he is a member of pioneering exploitation folk-rock group Woven Skull and the brutalist punk quintet Worst. Likewise, he counts among his many inspirations Eva-Maria Houben, J.S. Bach, Cornelius Cardew, Rhodri DavisMel Bay’s Jazz guitar and Autechre. Under & Cracked is his sixth album and the first one not released by him independently.

Under & Cracked features Dublin’s finest  – and unfortunately lesser known – improvisers – drummer David Lacey, violist Ailbhe Nic Oireachtaigh (both played on McEvoy’s self-released 28/11/16, 2020), electronics player George Brennan and double bass player Sean Maynard Smith. McEvoy and his band navigate freely between free improvisation, Americana, post-rock and minimalism. McEvoy’s understated and unhurried guitar lines anchor the commotion with gentle and simple, repetitive, ripple-like motives that attach to the three pieces a sensibility of improvised folk songs that naturally blossom into a layered psychedelic texture.

The second piece «Night-Time Providence» captures best the sonic essence of Under & Cracked. It revolves around McEvoy’s minimalist, repetitive guitar lines and suggests a psychedelic kind of post-rock minimalism with strong echoes of West-African cyclical scales, or as the Astral Spirits call it: «Tony Conrad and Faust meets Natural Information Society». «Delhi, Laganside, 2014» imagines the restless commotion of the Indian mega-city with steady, repetitive motives and slowly ornaments the dense and nervous dynamics with more sonic nuances and colors.

Aonghus McEvoy is a creative power that deserves your attention.

Eyal Hareuveni

Aonghus McEvoy (g), George Brennan (elec), David Lacey (dr), Sean Maynard Smith (b), Ailbhe Nic Oireachtaigh (viola)