Aerial Boundaries

Essential: a masterpiece of Fusion music
Michael Hedges, luckly, doesn’t have these kind of problems . Rather, to think that they have been being spent 20 years for that night of 2nd of December 1997 when he died in a crash car, 43 years old…

This is the finest album from Michael Hedges, the man who is responsible for the greatest revolution in solo acoustic guitar playing since Leo Kottke. There are moments on Aerial Boundaries where it seems literally impossible that so much music is coming from one man and his guitar. Attacking his instrument, snapping strings, banging on the fingerboard with his right hand, Hedges plays supremely beautiful music with the technique of a deranged lunatic. It has been said that genius is at least one part madness – although a questionable assertion in general terms – when applied to Hedges and his music, the analogy holds. The songs on Aerial Boundaries are all beautiful and haunting in their own right; and it is this emphasis on composition over technique that makes this such an important recording.

Essential: A masterpiece of Fusion music collection.
Coming at the absolute crest of Windham Hill’s artistic and financial success, this is arguably the album to recommend if you are only to have one Windham Hill album.

Dedicated to the memory of Australian composer Phillip Houghton, it features his piece “Opals”, as well as works by Tilman Hoppstock, Robert Beaser, Kevin Callahan, Frederic Hand, and Michael Hedges. It opens with “Hidden Realm of Light” by former LAGQ member Andrew York.

The music on A Quiet Revolution is sorted by general style, not chronologically. Discs 1 and 2, Elements and Peace, focus more on the label's pastoral textures, and disc 3 (Artistry) explores more ambitious or ensemble pieces. Disc 4 (Excursions) might be viewed by some long-time fans as "Wayward Hill," with its assortment of latter-day vocal stylings and traces of smooth jazz.