Empathy Instinct

Henry Kaiser has the gift. Whether it's the gift of empathy, of friendship, or simply a more pragmatic gift for creative collaboration isn't clear, but I think it's one of the first two. These guitar duos go all the way back to 1977, and "Wheels Right and Left" with the saintly Davey Williams, coming right up to date with "Infinitum Ad-Infinitum" with the currently omnipresent Ian Brighton. The set starts, properly enough, with "Chrysanthemums", a 1993 meeting with Derek Bailey, just a minute and a half in length, but it ends, even more appropriately with a much longer piece with John Russell called "Split the Difference". In between, you'll find warm, sometimes hilarious selfies with Nels Cline, Fred Frith, Jim O'Rourke, Elliott Sharp, Eugene Chadbourne, Bill Frisell, but also a few less familiar names like Debashish Bhattacharya, Sandy Ewen, Chris Muir and Roberto Zorzi; all this just laboured enough to suggest the range and warmth of Kaiser's creative relationships. These are, as he explains in a minimal sleevenote, friends who became heroes who became friends.