Daniel Bachman

★★★★ Axacan THREE LOBED. DL/LP

Guitar master’s hauntological survey of his Virginian homeland.

There are times on this latest album by the adventurous Bachman when he is captured playing guitar on the crackliest of microphones, muffled by wind and rain, as if a field recorder has cornered an endangered species out in the wild. Bachman made his cultish name as a blues and folkinflected guitarist, sometimes in the company of Ryley Walker, but his music has always pushed further and more fearlessly towards the avantgarde. Axacan – named after a Spanish colony in what would become Virginia – is a particularly deep and immersive listen, with sound collages that treat the American South similarly to how the Ghost Box label reimagine Old England. One track, Ferry Farm, is named after the Fredericksburg estate with connections to both George Washington and Bachman himself. Climate grief permeates the action, too: Blue Ocean 0 is a massive, ominous drone worthy of Éliane Radigue. But there’s still room for Bachman’s more conventional virtuosity, as the outstanding Coronach emerges as a 12-string exploration worthy of Jack Rose.