Ace guitarist Carl Weingarten has always struck out on his own path. Around 1980 when he was ready to release his own material featuring novel approaches to New Age music, he didn’t wait for a record company to come around and embrace his ideas, he created Multiphase Records instead and hadn’t looked back. He was and remains an ‘indie artist’ in the purest sense before such a term came into wide use.
But after more than forty years and thirty-plus albums, Weingarten is ready to look back. The Simian River Collection 1980-2020 is a sweeping retrospective that pulls together a whopping forty-one songs over the 1980 to 2020 time period, a cogent exhibit of the unique ingenuity of this slide master in not just technique, but also composition and arrangements that stay in character while never staying in place.
This retrospective isn’t the first for this innovative plectrist, but it’s the one to get. The Simian River Collection is neatly categorized by each of the three discs, one for each chapter in an evolving, decades-long musical career: the first one “All Things Return” covers the 1980-1990 period while Disc Two “Hand In The Sand” goes from there to 2005. “The Simian River” disc spans 2005 up to 2020. Dispersed throughout this trio of media are previously unreleased tracks – remixes, live performances and old recordings pulled from the vault – that give even the completists something fresh to savor.
On the first disc, ‘All Things Return,’ we hear Weingarten already mastering the art of leveraging technology for creating aural paintings that touches on New Age, jazz, minimalism, ambient – even contemporary classical – while defying any sort of neat categorization (although any classification would have to include the word “experimental” in it). Moreover, the tactics change from track to track; a track like “Pandora’s Garage” will be all-electric/electronic while the previously unreleased “Lost Guitars” puts acoustic guitars at the center with soothing synth sounds comfortably set behind them. Other times, Weingarten uses a then-uncommon approach of blending clean, elongated notes from electric guitars seamlessly with electronic ones, demonstrated well on “Dreaming in Colors (at length).”
‘Hand In The Sand’ is a period marked by more ensemble performances than the 80s fare and that’s where many of Weingarten’s collaborations with all-world bassist Michael Manring are found. “Local Journeys,” the title song from a 2005 release even kicks off this disc with Manring’s unmistakable fretless bass out front with Weingarten. Moreover, you hear Weingarten touching on so many more music styles as he maintains his signature sound. I’ve always regarded the slide guitar as Weingarten’s secret weapon and he puts it to good use on the country-flavored “West of Austin” and a bluegrass-adjacent number “Up The Down Slide.” Helping to keep the fare varied and not sounding the same is Weingarten’s penchant for mixing and matching front-line partners playing just about every instrumental imaginable “Illumina Suite,” for instance, features the violin of Geoff Seitz blending in comfortably alongside Weingarten’s guitars. A string section accompanies Weingarten’s acoustic guitar for “Hand In The Sand” and the all-acoustic configuration doesn’t feel at all out of place here.
In the most recent years represented by ‘The Simian River,’ Weingarten goes deeper organic, moving further away from the electronic elements that dominated the first chapter and pushed to the background for much of the second one. “The River King” (remixed for this album) features a lush bed of fingerpicked guitars from David Udell and Pat Duffey, beautifully countered by Manring’s expressive bass. Weingarten’s slide guitar accompanied by fingerpicked acoustic guitars on “Geola” is a gorgeous exhibition of how an unhurried method can paint a more complete picture. Even when heavier arrangements are employed, such as the horn section used on “Mr. Sundance,” the song feels light and gentle. Some songs simply radiate with a warm glow, such as “The Simian River” and “Ember Days.”
In the liner notes, Weingarten writes, “I wanted to assemble a collection that would pull the music into some focus, not only for new listeners, but also as a collection for my friends that would be, if not comprehensive, at least comprehendible and enjoyable.” It was surely a big task in putting this together right, but he succeeds in meeting all his stated goals. There’s no one like Carl Weingarten and this collection will make you like his music, like no one else’s.
The Simian River Collection is now out and like every Carl Weingarten album, is offered by Multiphase Records.
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