Jeff Fuccillo - Disturbed Strings

Jeff Fuccillo
Disturbed Strings
Roaratorio
Roar 07

There’s a rather unusual story behind this recording. Jeff Fuccillo is an Oregon-based guitarist who, back in 1998, had the nerve-wracking opportunity to open for one of his heroes, the late John Fahey. The senior guitarist apparently liked what he heard (Fuccillo’s sound might briefly be described as somewhere between Fahey and Derek Bailey) and invited him to go to the studio and record an album for Fahey’s label. When the day came, Fuccillo gathered together material and instruments, set up in the recording studio and began to play. Immediately, torrents of taped sound (effects, musical samples, etc. not dissimilar from those employed on some of Fahey’s later releases, such as “Womblife”) began to issue over the studio’s speakers. It seems that, unbeknownst to the young guitarist, Fahey, for undisclosed reasons, had quite a different session in mind. Fuccillo played for a couple of hours (including some unreleased duo work), battling through and around the intrusions, ending the date with Fahey’s promise to meet again for editing. This never occurred. They re-encountered each other a year later, Fahey expressing the opinion that the recording was “too nice” and thinking they should venture back into the studio again to go for something more “pure and raw”. This never happened either.

So, “With some hesitancy”, Fuccillo decided to release the session “as is” in 2004 on vinyl LP. Fahey’s rude interruptions are immediately apparent. Fuccillo’s opening piece, a song that recalls the older musician quite a bit, is quickly in combat with symphonic extracts, explosions and whatnot hurled his way without any obvious rhyme or reason. One imagines Fahey’s rationale was something along the line of introducing roadblocks of a sort into what might otherwise be (in his mind) a too smooth process, forcing the would-be protégé to explore pathways that would normally be left untrammeled. It’s not clear that Fuccillo always accepts the invitation (bait?). On the more straightforward, blues or bluegrass-inspired songs, he generally plows ahead, the taped sounds running down their own parallel road. The freer, more Bailey-esque numbers seem more amenable to Fahey’s ideas, though how much of that is Fuccillo’s doing and how much is the listener’s own integration of the sounds heard is open to argument. In any case, the success of the lovelier pieces here strikes me as more dependent on what Fuccillo brought to the session rather than Fahey’s subterfuge. On “Lilt of the Butterfly”, he nods toward Harry Partch’s kithara before veering into some delightful, only slightly abstracted, country picking. “Nogawa River” is one where the interplay works quite well, Fuccillo’s furious (possibly koto inspired) playing merging with dark wells of sound from various sources, including low, bowed strings.

All of the pieces succeed to a greater or lesser extent, though I find myself better enjoying Fuccillo the more “traditional” he keeps his playing. This might be more of an issue I have with various musicians who straddle avant and older forms—it takes a lot of dedication to be a Derek Bailey; either go for it or don’t. Finding a satisfying middle ground can be problematic (viz. Henry Kaiser). Though he has instrumental ability to spare, it’s when he lets himself relax and settle into what seem to me to be his natural, melodic tendencies that the music blooms and expands into fascinating areas. That some of those areas are infested with sonic detritus issuing from that erratic genius occupying the room next door usually doesn’t matter and occasionally works to the music’s benefit. “Disturbed Strings” is an enticing introduction to Fuccillo’s “solo” art (he had recorded previously—not familiar to me—with the Irving Klaw Trio, Wham-O and Hochenkeit) and something that Fahey completists will need to own.

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~ Brian Olewnick