photo: Arek Wyderka
Whenever guitarist and composer Scott DuBois sets out to make an album, he devises a strategy for it, and that strategy is the point of the record. Musicianship — which is always ample — exists to serve his designs, not the other way around. His guiding light has always revolved around the miracle of nature and the great outdoors and lately, more specifically about the seasons. Summer Water uses for its guiding light not just the warmest season of the year but also the life-giving wonder of water in its various guises.
For Summer Water, DuBois created a musical palindrome: the first track “Into River Fog” and last track “Into Sea Fog” are variations of the same theme, as are the second track and second-last tracks, and so on. These are not songs with doppelgangers; think of them having fraternal twins instead of identical ones. That said, it’s fair to state that how one song is described in my layman vernacular also fits the description of its variation.
DuBois did this to reflect a jaunt down a river and out to the sea, with the midpoint song “Storm Where The River Meets The Sea” reflecting the crossing point from river to sea. You could easily listen to this album in reverse track order (i.e., from sea to river) and get that same general vibe; the peaks and valleys, the overall progression from song to song is going to be similar even if the notes and chord patterns might be a little different.
For Summer Water, DuBois yet again reconstitutes his band: for Winter Light he deployed a quartet; Autumn Wind added an instrument with each passing track until by the final track his base quartet was fully supplemented by a woodwinds quartet and a string quartet. Summer Water is not really played by an ensemble at all, it’s just DuBois on guitar.
DuBois’ guitar resonates so much, it would be easy to assume there’s looping, layering or overdubs, but he doesn’t do any of that. The bellowing strings functions as DuBois’ one-man orchestra, a symphonic effect demanded from his compositions in order for these pieces to be fully realized.
DuBois’ fingerpicks on “Into River Fog” involve taking pauses after each fragment of a motif, letting the final notes echo into the ether. It’s a lush sonic impression that has the effect of letting each discreet musical thought sink in for a second before he moves on to the next one. That sets the template for many of these pieces.
The middle part of the “Summer Light On Rushing River” is the first point at which DuBois rises above a hushed atmosphere, mixing up hearty streaming with nimble, single line note runs. About a minute into “Storm Where The River Meets The Sea” the storm does indeed arrive in the form of DuBois’ increasingly frantic playing which still follows a design and like a fast-moving storm, he returns to the tranquility of the beginning.
Like other Scott DuBois works, Summer Water is sagacious and spiritually deep, only this time, only DuBois’ guitar is needed for those qualities to shine through.
Summer Water is slated for release on April 2, 2021 from Watertone Music.
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