My first exposure to Charles K. Noyes was on a pair of albums I found in the racks of the local college radio station. One, Bob Ostertag's Getting A Head, wherein Noyes' playing was sampled and mangled and spat back out by an ingenious contraption of three tape recorders, is to this day one of my favorite records. The other album Free Mammals attributed to Noyes and Owen Maerks, is a scrabbly carnival of guitar/drum clamor, which by the way, has just been re-released. Since then, I have tried to find all of Noyes recorded performances, which tells you just how much I enjoy his playing.

The last I heard from him was a solo turn, "Full Stop", on which he played all the instruments and blended them skillfully with field recordings and shortwave crackle. Coming after all the records of spiky free improvisation, it was a bit of a surprise. As is the current offering from our man from Shohola, PA, a record of solo guitar improvisations. Very heavily processed and sounding at times like a small ensemble, Noyes creates uncanny gatherings of string-led SOUND that don't resemble any guitarist I can think of, save perhaps his good friend Henry Kaiser. There are times when a straight arpeggio or short melody will float to the top of the noisier, more digital sounding foam and hang there for just a second, placing the quotidian just so atop the glitchy distortion and bubbling effects. At one point during "Jacklighter" it sounds like he's manipulating an armload of electric shavers, building a buzzing, snarling chorus.

There are beautiful dissonances and floating rhythms and some breath-taking build-ups of ricocheting harmony. Lines pull ahead while tiny shards peel away from the sides and dissolve into eddies of metal detritus. A fine collection of scree, I suggest that you turn it up.