Photo: Lauren Desberg

Today sees the release of œconomy, the new album from composer, multi-instrumentalist and producer brad allen williams. Known as a guitarist of extraordinary virtuosity, on œconomy williams “was determined to find non-referential uses for his main instrument, the electric guitar”, which sprouted into a daring and astonishing album that exists at the borderlands of jazz, neoclassical, and experimental music.

williams had preciously shared two stellar singles from the album, ‘tecnologia’ ft. Mark Giuliana and more recently ‘boomer’. Of the latter, he commented:

“Self-conscious avoidance of all the electric guitar’s accumulated cultural baggage sometimes feels reflexive, and I found myself doing a lot of it during the making of this album. But sometimes the best way out is through.

Co-producer Pete Min suggested we plunge headlong into the abyss: to make a distorted-guitar riff rocker, but find a way to use that cliché’s own powers against it.

We plugged guitars into Moog synthesizers instead of amplifiers, I played some Bonham-inspired drums into a single microphone, and we amused ourselves with an earnest-but-not-entirely-earnest guitar solo and Stylophone coda. The result grew on us quite a bit; I really hope my genuine love of guitar heroism (and the blues in all of its many guises) gets across.”

Listen to both tracks below and grab œconomy now through Colorfield Records.