NELS CLINE (WILCO, NELS CLINE SINGERS, NELS CLINE TRIO, NELS CLINE 4)

TECHNICAL MASTERY IN THE SERVICE OF RAW EXPRESSION.

NELS CLINE IS one of the most daring and creative guitarists working today. Armed with a phalanx of noise-making devices and a finely honed instinct for improvisation, he’s pushed back the boundaries of what the guitar is sonically capable of. As well as his fine work with Chicago alt-rockers Wilco, Nels has followed in John Scofield’s footsteps as guitarmeister in the pioneering jazz outfit Medeski, Martin & Wood, and worked with countless artists, including Mike Watt and Thurston Moore. Through it all, he’s shown an uncanny ability to improvise without descending into jam-band territory. “I think listening is always the key,” he says. “Certainly, one needs to have familiarity with the language of music making, or whatever the vocabulary of your instrument is. But beyond that, I think musicians who can play, and have the ability to do what we might call ‘deep listening’ while they’re playing, are capable of coming up with sounds very much like very organized music, but that doesn’t stay in one place too long.”

RECOMMENDED TRACK “IMPOSSIBLE GERMANY” ( WILCO— SKY BLUE SKY)