The Los Angeles Guitar Quartet, achieving remarkable consistency since its founding in 1980, has established its own LAGQ label and has exceeded its own high engineering standards. Credit goes first of all to producer Steve Rodby and co-producer William Kanengiser on this 2022 release Opalescent; the guitar sound from Cammilleri Hall at the University of Southern California, is absolutely exemplary. It's a good thing, too, for the program on Opalescent is all about subtle layering effects and guitar sounds. All of the music is new and is written for the guitar quartet except for the late Michael Hedges' Aerial Boundaries, and Hedges was a virtuoso guitarist whose music adapts easily to the quartet. The music hovers between classical and jazz, with a dash of Hedges' New Age sounds. Toward the classical end is the five-movement Suite Transcendent of Tillman Hoppstock, a performer and scholar who, intriguingly, composes music under the name Allan Willcocks -- not just a pseudonym but an invented historical personage. The Suite Transcendent is something of a neo-Impressionist work, with expert writing for the guitars. The album title comes from that of a work by guitarist/composer Phillip Houghton, the evocative three-movement Opals. Houghton also contributes the fascinating Wave Radiance at the end. The music is highly varied, and even though most of it is similar as to idiom, the program is consistently interesting. Once again, those who record guitars should hear this as a guide to how it's done.
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