Echoes Sept CD of the Month: Jeff Johnson & Phil Keaggy

I’m always a little skeptical of music masquerading as tone poems, citing some vast vista like the Grand Canyon or the Himalayas or the Taj Mahal that is inspiring the music. I’m sure that’s true for many, but most instrumental artists tell me the titles come after the event of recording. Once I got a demo tape whose titles were draped in Australian aboriginal imagery that supposedly inspired the music, only to come out a few months later and now the exact same music was cast in Greek imagery.

Jeff Johnson and Phil Keaggy have released four previous albums, each inspired by a location, from the Frio River to Cappadocia to Ravenna. They were influenced by those locales and they were all beautiful albums (and all Echoes CDs of the Month.)

Their new album has none of that. And it is just as beautiful and evocative. Spinning on a Cosmic Dime is the fifth album and fifth CD of the Month from the duo. Each track on the record is a journey and they hold together like the early albums by Mike Oldfield, such as Hergest Ridge which just turned 50. Johnson and Keaggy are descendants of that sound.

Jeff Johnson has been a fixture on Echoes for a long time. First with his new age records, then his Celtic-inflected records with Irish flutist Brian Dunning, and finally his collaborations with guitarist Phil Keaggy, beginning with Frio Suite in 2009. Keaggy is something of a guitar icon due to his stints in the progressive rock band Glass Harp in the early 1970s and a string of acclaimed solo releases, including his 1978 album The Master and the Musician.

Together, these musicians do some of their best and most intricate work. This is modern instrumental music at a high level of composition. They may not be inspired here by ancient ruins or nature-carved panoramas, but they do tap into something more spiritual, where every note becomes a paean to the simple awe of existence.

The album opens beautifully with the title track which features an almost classical refrain from Johnson that is doubled by Keaggy. It builds intensity as Keaggy layers and swaps between different guitars. Tension grows when he launches a simple repeated melody that is echoed by Johnson on piano. But they never settle into one mode, as Keaggy breaks for a Renaissance guitar soliloquy before returning to the main theme with an 80s rock-god guitar solo you might have heard from Journey or Toto.

“A Poor Soul’s Kingdom” is a beautifully reflective song with a poignant acoustic guitar melody from Keaggy that’s echoed by Johnson on piano. Johnson is one of the few modern instrumental artists working with synth pads who understands how to make them organic and woven into the music and not sounding like they came out of a can. Keaggy arranges a symphony of guitars around it, from electric to acoustic.

“The Table of the Grail” may be the most epic track. Beginning with some ethereal e-bow guitar, Johnson then tucks in a sequencer pattern, while Keaggy floats on top with acoustic guitar, as Johnson echoes the sequence on piano. More guitars layer up against a tambourine rhythm as the track slowly accelerates. Then a bomb drops and things get really exciting as a delay bass-line, strummed guitar, fuzz guitar, and hand-pan all lock in until Keaggy whips out some heroic, sustained guitar.

A couple of tracks suffer from wooden, metronomic drumming like “Floating in this Confluence.” It takes them into different terrain, including a rock guitar solo that plays into fade out, but it lacks the effortless flow of the other tracks.

Spinning on a Cosmic Dime  shows that Jeff Johnson and Phil Keaggy don’t need a locale to inspire them. Hell, they aren’t even in the same place when they record, trading files back and forth between Johnson’s Camano Island home in Washington and Keaggy’s Nashville abode. Yet they make it all sound organic and whole. Spinning on a Cosmic Dime is the kind of album that has you spinning into reverie and dreams.

Join Echoes CD of the Month Club
Read our review of Johnson & Keaggy’s Frio Suite.
Read Our review of Johnson & Keaggy’s WaterSky
Read our review of Johnson & Keaggy’s Ravenna
Read our review of John & Keaggy’s Cappadocia