Cyrus Pireh “Thank You, Guitar” LP (Palilalia)

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Broadly speaking, shredders are the pro wrestlers of music, trafficking in overwrought drama but devoid of soul, the realm of finger-tappers, fretboard lubricators, and those prone to viewing music as a competitive brawl. As such, the axe-slinger of conscience steers clear of shredding behavior, albeit every-so-often dexterously running the neck to tip listeners off that, you know, they “really know how to play.” But for the typical avant-string consumer, shredding is beyond the pale.

Which brings us to Cyrus Pireh’s new Palilalia release Thank You, Guitar, his latest stab at “transcendental shred electric guitar music.” (Check out “If I Can Play Fast Enough It Will Turn into Food and Shelter” on Bandcamp for a long-form embodiment of exactly what this means). Pireh, a self-professed anarchist and presumed enemy of music-as-sport, upcycles the 32nd-note neck sprint into a mesmeric boil played and recorded with little intervening electronic trickery other than a Digitech DD5 and mysterious amp modifications.

The end result sounds like Pireh’s plugged a quarter-inch jack into each of the listener’s eardrums, a quick digital delay ping-ponging across the frontal lobes, the wet and dry signal of his 9-string axe all but indistinguishable. Indeed, Pireh views his maximalist double-handed scrabble as a mirror in which the listener might visualize all manner of details in its rapidly self-propagating tonal and rhythmic tapestry.

The title track, its hairpin turns echoing Fred Frith’s “Hello Music” — another startling LP-opener — establishes this methodology immediately. (“What Are We Doing What Could Be Done”, another Bandcamp track, taps this same ecstatic mojo). But far from languishing in razzle dazzle, each song tracks different tangential vectors, some (like “Free Palestine”) employing tape delay to smear the sounds into a muzzy, proto-psychedelic modality, with others stretching longer feedback times into unison lines reminiscent of Eno’s all-consuming Revox (albeit less pitchy). But the true mind bender of the record is “Amen Family”, its fret-tapping and string scraping reinventing the venerable amen break as an electrified freak-folk/jungle opus for fingerstyle guitar that has to be heard to be believed.

Ultimately, Thank You Guitar is a giant step forward in Palilalia’s redefinition of the solo guitar record, and one of the first truly novel things I’ve heard a guitar spit out in quite some time, milking the tension between precision and chaos, never quite veering into one or the other, but maintaining maximum engagement and brimming with action til the end. TOM CARTER

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“Distortion is truth.” – Robert Poss

Its sound pulls us out of ourselves, turns us toward the mirror of the self, and asks us to confront what we see. Distortion is the gift of the electric Guitar. Thank you, Guitar.

The “Guitar is a divining rod. Use it to find spirits in the other world and bring them over.” – Captain Beefheart

Distortion is how we attract the ancestors.

“We can’t all be alive at the same time.” – Mike Watt

Music dissipates, but distortion is the spidering web electric hung in the air connecting us.

“I listened to the material four times. All the material. It is beautiful. It is like an invitation to enthusiasm…someone must do a movie about the human being, about resilience, with this music. It took me to a place where I cannot ignore myself. A few days ago, I saw Smashing Pumpkins live. When Mayonnaise began, I instantly felt a rush of emotion, remembering how the music saved me in my younger years. I feel so tired. Everything in this country is so fucking hard. 7 years without vacations. Working every fucking day. No weekends. Music felt so strong lately. And really [I] can feel you in these sounds. I feel your vision …it’s like listening to something more than only music. Can’t explain it. Doesn’t happen to me with any other music. Maybe Coltrane. Something about the sound. So intimate.” – Alejandro Leonelli

For this, my 4th album of transcendental shred electric Guitar music, distortion invokes the resilience of the human being: a place where the self cannot be ignored. The electric Guitar again acts as medium, takes in our everything, and sparks the gap to the other side where resentments and anger are transmuted into joy and dancing sound between left and right channels. At times utilizing Boss DD5 Digital Delay, the Guitar itself participates in the music and what was solo becomes duet.

Being able to hold a twisted, distorted visage in one’s own two hands and mold it into relentless kindness is the only currency that will matter in the near future. The electric Guitar offers us an opportunity to learn how. Thank you, Guitar.

-Cyrus Pireh 2025