Loren Connors - Angels That Fall
(Family Vineyard)

More Loren Connors! Want to say first off, thanks to the good people at Family Vineyard for continuingly cataloging and reissuing Loren Connors’ truly important and fabulous recordings. His work as a guitarist and composer is stunning and unheralded. But with this release, something new from Connors. 
Trying to dig into the long and varied career of Loren Mazzacane Connors is no easy task. His recordings date back to the late 70s, much of which were improvised and released in small pressings. He’s collaborated with a long lists of guitarists within the avant-garde from the likes of John Fahey, Alan Licht, Kath Bloom, Thurston Moore, Keiji Haino, Jandek, Jim O’Rourke and Cat Power. At the same time, he’s been recognized within the traditional blues world as some of his works lie within the Blues Archive at the University of Mississippi. 
For this EP, Connors set himself up at a Unitarian Church in Brooklyn last year for a glistening piece of guitar and piano. What follows is a ghostly, cinematic and certainly beautiful 17 minute track titled “Angels That Fall.” The tonal line between what are traditional guitar sounds is fantastically blurred. Connors wills his guitar to hum and breathe, at times taking on an ambient undercurrent, and other times creating discordant chords that reverberate throughout the room. When he settles into the piano, he eases back into melancholic chords without being afraid to give his playing space, and silence, which sounds perfect in this setting. And speaking of that room, perhaps the best thing about Angels That Fall is the sound of the room itself. You can hear the creaky sounds of the church, the sound of Connors shifting in his stool, other miscellaneous movements that sound like ominous thumps in the night.
A beautiful and arresting piece of music by a master of sound; Loren Mazzacane Connors. (Dom)
Check out a track here.