Ex-Souled American guitarist Scott Tuma takes an ambient and painterly approach on his debut solo album, the all-instrumental Hard Again. Given the increasingly abstract direction taken during the past few Souled American albums, this doesn’t come as much of a shock.
Guitar and organ apply the primary colors, joined by occasional banjo and percussion from the Dirty Three’s Jim White, creating distant and ethereal melody fragments that seem to deepen inward rather than move forward. “Beautiful Dreamer” lays out a sparse sonic pallet, slowly and deliberately setting one chord against another. The aptly titled “Jim White Drums” sees multiple generations of the same source guitar build, swirl, and surround what sounds like White slowly pouring a bag of BBs and ping-pong balls across his kit.
The mellotron-driven title track is the most song-oriented of the set, offering a definite, hummable melody that rollicks and rolls (if glacially) back and forth like a sea shanty for Arctic Ocean sailors. “Sermon”, the majestic and haunting final track, builds upon a metallic and echoing organ, creating what could one day be the opening hymn for the first church service on Neptune.
