Cyrus Prieh – “Still Here, Still Ripping”

Another great release on the dock from Astral Spirits offshoot Astral Editions. The label pushes away from the free jazz roots of its parent label to embrace folk and experimental tangents and this new record from Illinois Guitarist Cyrus Pireh falls into those confines quite nicely. Playing with a technique that swerves around the styles of his peers, Pireh’s electric folk conjurings are created in part by rapidly interrupting the signal of the guitar to the amp, rather than manipulating the strings to rend his ripple. The results feel akin to records by RSTB faves Jordan Reyes or Joseph Allred, but emerge out of a completely different cocoon altogether, communing with electricity to find the soul of folk, a bio-mechanical sunbeam in splendor. The new album is out April 29th, and you can hear the sparkling title track, “Still Here, Still Ripping,” below.

In other great news for the Astral Edition imprint, it seems that moving forward into the year site faves Jen Powers and Matthew Rolin will be taking over the curatorial reigns and picking a roster of great releases into 2022 and beyond. Very excited to see what on deck, but it looks like there will be some new releases from Shells, Sunburned Hand of the Man, Alex Cunningham/Patrick Shiroishi/Thom Nguyen, Johnny Coley in the near future!

Support the artist. Buy it HERE.