LEMON FISH TWEEZER

I happen to love Henry Kaiser's off the wall style of guitar playing, but I have to be in the right frame of mind to listen to over an hour of his six string insanity. It's similar to the feeling I get when I listen to one of my Conlon Nancarrow (look him up) albums. If I'm relaxed enough, Kaiser's disjointed sound poems can sound quite pleasant to me. But if I'm wound up after a hard day of work, forget it.

This album showcases Kaiser's solo guitar (sometimes with overdubs) recorded from 1973 to 1991. Some of the pieces are played on a guitar based MIDI controller, so the sounds are sampled from other instruments (piano, sax, etc.). The majority of the pieces are non- structured improvisations, with Kaiser demonstrating the weird noises he can make.

The best piece is the highly overdubbed It's A Wonderful Life, a twenty four minute blast through many different aspects of Kaiser's soloing.

I like this album, but I prefer when he plays in a group.