10000 Miles CD

Chris Summerlin's debut album under the boastful, ironic pseudonym "The Last Of The Real Hardmen" follows six years of releasing lathe-cut vinyl and hand-crafted CDRs that received tiny circulation to no more than a small circle of fans. The quality of the tunes on offer suggest this is a third or fourth album rather than an excitable first. Summerlin is a virtuoso guitarist and lays down electric guitar patterns with drums, field recordings and the occasional bottleneck to provide depth and variation. Instrumental music can be hard to keep interesting and this is where Summerlin's skill really kicks in, injecting his form of purist instrumental music with nods towards inevitably John Fahey merged with the full-bodied widescreen emissions of Tortoise... The lovely folks at Birdwar have also included 6 tracks from Summerlin's ultra-limited lathe cut 10" originally released on Lone Hand recordings and this faultlessly adds to the mass of an almost worryingly beautiful album. Otherworldly and timeless.