rootless

Jeremy Hurewitz’ rootless has been kicking around for a few years, but with his latest for Flower Room, he’s created an album that explores deeper dimensions. The guitarist has popped up on notable labels like Cabin Floor Esoterica, Aural Canyon, and Null Zone, but as the first Flower Room release outside of Matt Lajoie and Ash Brooks’ universe of Northeastern sounds, he’s capturing a meditative aura that’s impossible to deny. Hurewitz connected with multi-instrumentalist Luís Pérez Ixoneztli for his latest. Luís is the overseer of a collection of priceless, one-of-a-kind, indigenous instruments from Mesoamerica (many of them pre-Colombian), and they add a deepened mystery and spiritual aura to the works of rootless. Beside Jeremy’s gorgeous stringwork, Pérez Ixoneztli lets ancient pipes swirl into the mix, floating on a misted haze that’s eloquent in its pre-dawn glory. Per Flower Room’s description these range from “ocarinas and small whistles to dried cocoon shells strung together and used as shakers. The collection includes clay flutes that are possibly over a thousand years old.”

The winds take this record far beyond the standard fingerpicked fare. The deeper the album dives, the more it begins to resemble ritual and rite. The title track especially strays far from the meditative guitar path, pushing into the arms of Pérez Ixoneztli’s spectral mix of instruments and Hurewitz’ intimidating ambient growl. The stitches begin to unravel in a wonderful way, letting the knotted riffs give way to drone and dust and hazed memories that seems to flit in and out of consciousness on the final track. In many ways rootless has always lent a more experimental edge to the fingerpicked canon, but here, Jeremy finds his peak with the aid of Luís, creating a paring that I honestly wouldn’t mind seeing extend beyond this record, though this is more than enough to dig into for the time being.

Support the artist. Buy it HERE.