Improve the Shining Hour

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Gary Lucas is that rare bird, a guitar hero with a sense of humour, ample evidence of which was provided by last year's solo album for Tzadik, Busy Being Born. Improve the Shining Hour gathers several ordinary careers' worth of work on one long CD, ranging over twenty years in time and in breadth from scorching rock solos to acoustic folk to ambient soundscaping. In between, Lucas displays his wares in the company of a dizzying array of luminaries. He backs up Nick Cave reciting from his novel "And the Ass Saw the Angel", slithers around in the swamp gas of "Spider Web" with David Johansen, calls the faithful to repentence on "Judgement" (plucked from the Harry Smith Anthology of American Folk Music and brilliantly testified by Charles Mingus' son Eric), and strums elegantly behind French-Uruguayan chanson Elli Medeiros. Also featured is some unreleased pickin'-and-grinnin' with Holy Modal Rounder Peter Stampfel, Lucas' theme music for a TV documentary on the Unabomber, and an improvised session with DJ Spooky. He also resurrects the Golem of Prague together with his group Gods and Monsters and makes multitracked poetic madness with Mary Margaret O'Hara. Lucas' breakthrough came as a member of the Magic Band, so it is only proper that three of the tracks are culled from live appearances with Captain Beefheart, who accurately summarizes everything after Lucas rips off a short, intense solo: "Man can play guitar!" The wealth of material and styles is impressive, as it the accompanying twenty-page booklet, richly illustrated and annotated.