Chris Forsyth and Solar Motel Band, Herbcraft

Chris Forsyth is a lauded guitarist and composer whose work assimilates art-rock textures with vernacular American influences. Long active in underground circles, he has released a string of acclaimed records of widescreen guitar rock that he deems Cosmic Americana. His recent release Solar Motel (Paradise of Bachelors) was called one of 2013's best releases by the New Yorker, Uncut, Aquarium Drunkard, Frontier Psychiatrist, Pop Matters, and others, provoking ecstatic comparisons to classic artists like Television, The Grateful Dead, Popul Vuh, Neil Young & Crazy Horse, Richard Thompson, Robert Quine, John Fahey, and Glenn Branca. Most recently, he has reinvented himself as a band leader, and in April 2014, released the Solar Live 11.15.13, a live reinterpretation of Solar Motel as Chris Forysth & the Solar Motel Band (w/ guitarist Paul Sukeena, bassist Peter Kerlin, and drummer Steven Urgo).

"(Solar Motel) is some kind of masterpiece, a four-part suite of ecstatic, spiritual psychedelia that splits the difference between unabashed classic rock thrills and a spikey avant garde sense of adventure. Try to imagine Television circa 1977 recording a cover of Pharoah Sanders' "The Creator Has A Master Plan" and you're halfway there." - Aquarium Drunkard

"9/10. It's a fierce, exploratory record that sounds, in a way, like an instrumental sequel to Television's Marquee Moon. Forsyth understands how to elevate mathematical riffing with lyrical flourishes and buried echoes of folk motifs. As a whole, it's brilliant." Uncut