Man About a Horse

After a pair of extraordinary but esoteric albums with a Tibetan nun and a Norwegian Hardanger fiddle player, respectively, Steve Tibbetts returns to the form of albums like Exploded View. Tibbetts is a shaman with a guitar, although he would cringe at the designation. But what else to make of a musician whose music seems to rip across the fabric of reality, opening up into a sometimes beautiful but often tumultuous world? A student of Tibetan Buddhism, Tibbetts dispels the idea of serene meditation with a sound that rivals the spirit-awakening call of Tibetan trumpets. It's a whiplash mix of throbbing percussion, clangorous samples, plaintive acoustic guitar, and roiling electric fury. Gentle Balinese and finger-picked acoustic guitar segments waft like the scent of jasmine, only to be consumed by thundering drums and electric guitar that ascend from the abyss, spitting hellfire. Like a morphing mandala, A Man About a Horse reveals different aspects and richer details through each listening. --John Diliberto