Leo Abrahams

★★★

Scene Memory II FIGUREIGHT. DL/LP

An air of deep tension pervades Eno collaborator’s first solo guitar LP in 15 years.

The polar opposite of spotlighthogging shredder Yngwie Malmsteen, Leo Abrahams delves into his instrument’s farthest reaches across a series of unscripted interactions with Ableton patches (first trialled on a 2019 Siberian tour). The self-labelled ‘anti-virtuosic’ guitarist is an almost ethereal presence on Scene Memory II, ghosting in and out of the celestially-inclined drama of Spiral Trem, the paradisiacal chords of Ruins and descending melancholic figures of The Wides – often playing just a few notes but making every one count – before all the spooks gather on the ghostly graveyard waltz of Outpost. Ambient without being remotely ‘new age’, with abrupt shifts in character, Abrahams will appeal to fans of Vini Reilly, Harold Budd or Robert Fripp, without sounding like anyone but himself.