Photo by Charlie Anastasis
Peter Matthew Bauer has entered his guitar hero phase. For proof, take the onetime Walkmen bassist/organist’s upcoming third solo album, Flowers, which finds him embracing the freeing, fleet-fingered approach of Tuareg blues players like Mdou Moctar. The move even surprised Pete, who hadn’t previously considered getting this expressively extravagant on a project.
“Somewhere along the way, I realized I had never really taken a guitar solo in all the years I’ve played music,” Peter had previously said in a press statement. “I became obsessed with figuring out a way to do so while also still moving the songs along. Now that I’ve started, I’m not sure how I’ll stop.”
It’s fair to say, then, that Flowers is overflowing with a previously unheard fluidity. Tracks like “Knife Fighter,” “Flowers,” and “East” are fit with hypnotically billowing hammer-on leads, but “Skulls,” in particular, goes hard with a pair of minute-plus solos. Blessedly, those extended sections come across as overjoyed, not overdone.