Roth, Chuck

Roth, Chuck

Texture Songs

Palilalia

"'I have this Pavlovian response where I just expel songs,” Chuck Roth explains. For the New York-based guitarist, the LP format is less a definitive product than a snapshot of his daily life and growing artistic practice. With last year’s watergh0st songs, Roth was dedicated to 'mapping every voice, seeing where they come together and fall apart.' He’s more interested in materiality on his new album, the expressive and intimate Texture Songs. Across its seven tracks, he excavates the particularities of his Stratocaster, be it the guitar’s characteristic pickups or capacity for volume swelling. Traces of some Texture Songs have existed for at least five years, evolving with every live performance, but their presentation on this album represents Roth in the now. At times that means technique. 'Gun' is built on a curiosity for hitting harmonics on the bottom string, letting them ring out, while 'Siren' is similarly defined by sustained buzzing sounds while string crossing. 'I get really into the shape of each note,' he says. You can sense that curiosity in the album’s raw presentation, where every song invites a full feeling of every plucked note, every slide across the fretboard. On the shapeshifting 'Highway,' it sounds like you’re there in the room with him, hearing his breath, sensing the shape of every chord, tracing each split-second change in attacking the guitar. Roth has felt most comfortable talking about his work with painters and visual artists, favoring descriptions via color and brightness over any technical language. It relates...

Roth, Chuck

watergh0st songs

Palilalia

"Chuck Roth’s music wanders. The New York-based guitarist’s inquisitive style builds from rippling patterns that center the physicality of his instrument, roaming wherever they take him. watergh0st songs, his Palilalia debut, collects songs from the past half-decade, presenting an intimate snapshot of his music that draws from an eclectic background in classical guitar, electronic music, and improvisation." "The mark of watergh0st songs is its exploratory nature. Roth began his musical journey as a classical guitarist studying the canon works for the instrument, but he was never interested in playing fast or flashy. Instead, he wanted to roam down musical paths and see where they led him. He eventually became more interested in electronic music, where he found inspiration in subtractive properties and patterning. The music of watergh0st songs translates that electronic music to the guitar: many of the songs began as synth tones and later branched out through the physicality of his instrument." "When writing music, Roth wants melodies to feel comfortable in the body, focused less on setting a structure and more on letting music unfold how it happens in any given moment. His songs are fluid and his melodies are clear, plucked with careful attention but never too deterministically. His is the music of a traveler, floating around the strings of the guitar. It is about embracing the banal, or the everyday moments that shape a life." "Though Roth’s music often feels quite direct, there is a dreaminess that lives inside of it. His lyrics don’t feel too...