Justin Adams - Desert Road

Desert Road is the first release from one of England's most distinctive guitarists. Its swaying grooves and parched tones invoke Desert landscapes, Arizona or Sahara, an ancient / contemporary take on the blues - a Moorish Blues with echoes of the call to prayer and African trance.In Mali at the beginning of 1999, Adams bought a 3 stringed African lute - (an ngoni) - from a Tuareg musician. Its dry sharp tone has been around 4,000 years before the banjo. This magical instrument of hide and wood set the album in motion, providing rolling grooves which Adams has set against explosions of blues guitar and electronics in the spirit of Lee Perry or the early experiments of Pink Floyd or Roxy Music. Alone in a tiny lo-tech studio, Adams has created sound atmospheres which teeter on the edge between darkness and celebration, where the guitar is used not to show off pyrotechnics but as a supremely emotional instrument.