TUMBLEWEEDS

Missives have been moved to the new home of

http://cnugent.tumblr.com/

Fondly

Cian

MATT BALDWIN & CIAN NUGENT'S BLUES ATTACK

If you're looking for a electric concert of post psychedelic minimalist blues choogle where you can drink beer (or wine or oil even) that you purchased at your local cash and carry in Dublin this Friday you've come to the right Cian Nugent propaganda outpost.

Matt Baldwin & The Cian Nugent Band play The Joinery, Stoneybatter, Dublin, this Friday, March 16th. 




What can you do about it?

Attend your person with a presence of spirit and soul at building in Joinery.


8 Euro Punts, 8 30 PM

NEWGENT

Here's the deal --

Opening up for Jeff Mangum in Vicar St, Dublin tomorrow, think there are still some tickets.

Playing at Scheld'apen, Antwerp on April 27th for the New Music For Old Instruments festival with Stephan Mathieu, Jozef van Wissem & Gonzalez & Steenkiste.

Finally, recorded a demo of Nugent Band jam Double Horse last week in advance of recording, here's a taste on your ear tongues.

Stay stupid,

IT WAS THE NEW YEAR TWO MONTHS AGO

Ey up,

Some points of newz: first off USA tour was real cool, got a stomach bug in Chicago and puked all over the land. Did some recording with Desert Heat (Nugent, Steve Gunn & John Truscinski) which has shaped up to be a pretty sweet LP, hopefully will arrive before too long. Also while I was in NY I did a session for WFMU that turned out pretty good, which you can download from the Free Music Archive. Click on the picture of yours truly at WFMU for the link


I have a new 7" coming out on VHF records in April. Two songs I've been sitting on for a while, solo guitar recorded at home on tape. Watch this space.

Working on Nugent Band jams at the moment, sounding great.
E-L-E-C-T-R-I-C

Also got a bunch of shows coming up in Ireland
March 7th, Vicar St, Dublin; solo opening up for Jeff Mangum (sold out)
March 16th, The Joinery, Stoneybatter, Dublin; Matt Baldwin & Cian Nugent Band, 8 euro, BYOB
March 18th, Triskel Arts Center, Cork; Matt Baldwin and Cian Nugent solo
April 4th, Black Box, Belfast, solo opening up for Michael Gira
April 5th, Button Factory, Dublin, solo opening up for Michael Gira
May 11th, Unitarian Church, Dublin, solo w/ James Blackshaw & Alexander Tucker

That's pretty much what's up -- stay unreal.

UNITED STATES OF UMERICA

Hello The USA, I am within your glittering loins. 


I arrived this day last week and played in Chicago on Friday with Josephine Foster & Plastic Crimewave, it was a great gig and a lot of fun. The road show continues this Friday for the east coast leg. Dates below. Come and shower me with silver roses. 


Dec 16th, Philadelphia, The Rotunda, w/ William Tyler & Zillions 
Dec 17th, New York, Abrons Arts Centre, w/ William Tyler & Chris Forsyth 
Dec 18th, Boston, O'Briens, w/ Glenn Jones, Arborea & Reuben Son
Dec 20th, Maine, TBC, w/ Glenn Jones
Dec 21st, Montreal, Casa Del Popolo, w/ Glenn Jones

GRASS ABOVE MY HEAD

Newish song that has been in the works for a while now, shot in the Unitarian Church in Dublin last month by Paul O'Connor 

STEVE GUNN & CIAN NUGENT DO EUROPE

Dear The World,

Gunn and Nugent take on Europe this Autumn, attempting to bring joy and happiness to all with our brands of geetarwrangling, assisted in this venture in Belgium, Holland and France by the rifle-like pairing of Steve Gunn & John Truscinski in an almightly duo. Git ready!

Read the below coordinates and see if you can register any familiar places with your mind.
...
Come say hi!

Your boys,

Cian & Steve

----------------------------------------------------------

Before we join forces in Portugal the Cian Nugent band will play two shows in England and Steve Gunn Plays in Manchester.

13th October
BRISTOL, England
Bill Orcutt, Jessica Rylan, Cian Nugent Band & Posset (No Steve Gunn)
Cube Cinema
--
14th October
LONDON, England
Bill Orcutt, Jessica Rylan, Cian Nugent Band & Posset (No Steve Gunn)
Cafe OTO
&
MANCHESTER, England
Steve Gunn, Infinite Light & Bridget Hayden (No Cian Nugent)
--
15th October
LONDON, England
Bill Orcutt & Paul Hession, Steve Gunn, Posset, The Hunter Gracchus (No Cian Nugent)
--
16th October
PORTO, Portugal
Café au Lait,
--
17th October
BRANGANÇA, Portugal
Museu do Abade de Baçal,
--
18th October
COIMBRA, Portugal
Arte à Parte
--
19th October
LISBOA, Portugal
Kolovrat
--
20th October
ESPOSENDE, Portugal
Avesso
--
22nd October*
GRAAG TAAG FESTIVAL #2
w/ Charlemagne Palestine & Tony Conrad, Charalambides, Ralph White, Head of Wantastiquet, Silvester Anfang II, City Hands & more
HASSELT, Belgium
Kunstencentrum Belgie
13.30pm-02.00am
9-11 Euro
http://www.kunstencentrumbelgie.com/programma/concert/graagtraag2.htm
--
23rd October*
AMSTERDAM, Netherlands
w/ Charalambides, Orphax & Cinema Soloriens ft Marshall Allen
OCII
19.00pm
7 Euro
http://occii.org/
--
24th October*
GHENT, Belgium
TBA
--
25th October*
VRIJE GEESTEN FESTIVAL
w/ Rene Hell, Dracula Lewis, Jaws, Innercity, Club Responsible 
DEN HAAG, Netherlands
Maakhaven
--
26th October*
BRUSSELS, Belgium
Cafe Novo
--
27th October*
PARIS, France
w/ Robert Hampson
Instants Chavirés
20.30pm
10 Euro
http://alifibgigs.wordpress.com/2011/09/17/steve-gunn-john-truscinski-duo-cian-nugent-robert-hampson/
--
29th October
FESTIVAL SOY
w/ Bonnie Prince Billy, Silver Apples, Gala Drop, Eternal Tapestry, Fire!, Oren Ambarchi, Burial Hex, Iceage and more
NANTES, France
Cháteau Des Ducs De Bretagne
15.00pm
5/8 Euro
http://www.yamoy.org/
--
2nd November
ATHENS, Greece
TBA
--
4th November
DUBLIN, Ireland
Project Arts Centre
http://www.projectartscentre.ie/programme/whats-on/1444-cian-nugent-a-friends
---------------------------------------
* dates feature the duo of Steve Gunn and John Truscinski

WILLIAM TYLER + CIAN NUGENT, THE JOINERY, DUBLIN

This Sunday! Nashville's finest William Tyler (Silver Jews, Lambchop) hits Dublin to break some hearts and The Nugent Time do it. Don't not come.

DUDE OF THE WEEK

Some thoughts from Stewart Lee on Glenn Jones' and my recent LPs in today's Sunday Times.

BRAINWASHED

Irish steel-string guitarist Cian Nugent's fantastic full-length for VHF is his first widely available recording. It recalls a timeless vinyl record with its two side-length pieces—cohesive and complementary, deftly played, rooted in tradition with a modern experimental bent.

VHF

I first heard Cian Nugent's music on Important Records' tribute to Robbie Basho, We Are All One, in the Sun. His piece, "Odour of Plums," stood out as a highlight—no small feat on an album bookended by Steffen Basho-Junghans, featuring several other strong players. I'm not one for tracking down obscure releases, so Doubles is the first I've heard of Nugent on his own. While I expected something competent, Doubles is a complete joy to listen to, ambitious and fulfilling. It sits comfortably alongside the better works of Ben Chasny and Jack Rose, Jim O'Rourke's guitar-centric albums, and John Fahey's latter-day experiments on Table of the Elements.

"Peaks and Troughs" opens Doubles with a few resonant, off-kilter chords, strummed slowly, the dead air lingering uncomfortably in between. Individual strings are plucked slowly, then a bit faster, lingering around one note, then steering away, then hesitantly back again. Four minutes in, the piece all of a sudden transforms into three dimensions, like watching a flower bud blossom in fast-forward motion. Nugent's technique here draws equally from Middle Eastern and American Primitive guitar techniques, sounding like he drew inspiration out of Sir Richard Bishop's playbook (or something altogether more obscure).

Eventually, all the low end drops out, and Nugent's playing becomes hushed, sparse, but more frantic, desperate. Twelve minutes in, the silence is deafening—and then Nugent brings back the same off-kilter chords that he used at the start, layering notes onto each other until his deft fingerpicking is overtaken by a deep droning hum—at first accompanying his guitar, then suffocating it altogether. (That's about when my wife told me to "turn that shit down"—need I say more?) Listened to without distraction, "Peaks and Troughs" is an eerie, stunning piece—the best solo guitar I've heard all year.

The flipside is "Sixes and Sevens," which also takes its time getting off the ground, with a few piercing chimes and low-frequency thuds scattered in between the vibrating strings. With time, the song unfolds into something utterly gorgeous, with Nugent's pleasant guitar playing accompanied by organ, strings, woodwinds and brass at different points. The song ebbs and flows nicely, its instrumentation lush, its mood relaxed. It never reaches the high drama of "Peaks and Troughs," but what it deliberately lacks in heart-in-throat suspense, it makes up in warm, immersive composition. It is no small feat for a guitarist to record two tracks, 45 minutes between them, and consistently hold my interest. Nugent succeeds, and Doubles is essential listening

- Stephen Bush

JUNG HEARTS

I'm playing a solo guitar set at this on Monday.

Young Hearts Run Free presents: When Only Words Can Describe: Football/ The Heart's Yearning
Michael D. Higgins
Belinda McKeon
Paul Muldoon
Micheál Ó'Muircheartaigh
Eamon Sweeney (Swench)
Musical performances by:
Margie Lewis
Barry McCormack
Cian Nugent


Monday 29th August, 2011, 8.30pm 
The Unitarian Church, 
112 St. Stephen's Green West,
 Dublin 2. 
Admission 10euros. Tea and cake will be served. 

BANDKAMPF

Is go

DUSTED REVIEW

Few snippets of information regarding Irish guitarist Cian Nugent have been publically divulged. Which is fine, because comprehending Nugent’s music requires very little context. His musical influences appear to be a gigantic duh (the reader can here refer to Dusted’s Listed feature, one of the only Nugent-related articles to be found on the web), a dramatic and epic overlay of gentle, interwoven steel guitar, easily pigeonholed as Fahey/Rose facsimile. That’s not a critique, of course, but a side note; Nugent is simply a high-caliber guitarist, and Doubles is out to prove that.

“Peaks & Troughs” begins as a slow tiptoe around the edge of a cliff, slight and tremulous plucking without a hint of sarcasm or humor — this is earnest talent. After several minutes, Nugent dives off the precipice, the crescendos coming and going, each time plateauing via new, transitory textures. To establish what in essence are movements, Nugent toys vivaciously with silent spaces, using their power to emphasize each new phase of the track. By the time “Peaks & Troughs” nears its finale, Nugent has established such a haunting mood, his dexterous fingers are an afterthought.

The second track, “Sixes & Sevens,” unlike the preceding solo, features some of Nugent’s musician buddies. Unlike “Peaks & Troughs,” momentum carries this quickly and happily, as if catching a current instead of whirling in eddies, but the transitions between the piece’s many moods are impeccably done. They all make sense. As the song progresses, Nugent shifts delicately from an almost festive atmosphere to one preoccupied by the heaviness of its own sound.

It’s just another example of Nugent’s Gemini-like ability to weave in and out of opposing forces with finesse. He has no confusion about his ability to do so, playing with light and dark, buoyant and sinking, fast and slow — you get the picture. He is undoubtedly an acoustic master, and ebbing toward the same level of sophistication in regards to atmosphere. 

-- Kate Hensley

FOXY DIGITALIS REVIEW

“Doubles” contains a large conceptual leap for Dublin-based musician Cian Nugent from his previous releases, the 2007 self-titled CDR, and 2008 EP “Childhood, Christian Lies and Slaughter”; this quality of progression comes through the formal characteristics of the new album, specifically the way in which Nugent trades a division of individual songs for interconnected, fugue-like musical sections based around a theme (seemingly influenced by the structure of jazz and classical recordings); secondly, by the way in which Nugent draws on several different musical forms to flesh out his guitar-based writings, again, showing a definite influence of jazz music that is here very original.

Lastly, there is the skill and ability with which Nugent is able to write music that sets “Doubles” apart from many other musical collections of this year.  There is a lot to learn from the recordings, and hopefully other skilled musicians will be inspired by what Nugent is doing with the formal elements he keeps at hand.

Composed of two long pieces, each developed to a length of over twenty minutes, the album contains many different movements whose subsequent sections run kaleidoscopically from one passage of development into the next — all of these musical advancements being beautiful, the closing sections of second piece “Sixes & Sevens” in particular being very elegantly composed.  This use of continuously shifting music is liberating to hear, and allows Nugent to concentrate on expressing variations on an idea and its many different shades of interpretation.  “Peaks & Troughs,” the first musical set-piece on the record, is the more contemplative and slowly-metamorphosing of the two, and is defined by a modal approach to composition, while showing many similarities with the structure of James Blackshaw’s music.  “Sixes & Sevens,” the second piece, is very exuberant and energetic, and is possibly the better of the two.

In terms of musicianship, Nugent’s guitar style is based around alternately strong plucking of strings and soft harmonizing of close notes, which gives the instrument a particularly unvarnished, resonant tone reminiscent of Davy Graham’s technique (especially on Graham’s “Folk, Blues & Beyond…” record).  The instrumentation used on the album is highly interesting, including excellent jazz-based drumming and orchestration, vibrant brass playing on “Sixes & Sevens,” and droning synthesizer on “Peaks & Troughs.”

Perhaps most importantly, Nugent’s artistic ideas, and their expression through varying musical forms, show a great deal of maturity and refinement; it’s striking when listening to these recordings to remember that they were made by someone in their early 20′s, and it will be more than interesting to see what direction Nugent takes next.

-- Jordan Anderson

IRISH TIMES REVIEW

Last year, Irish music was all about the international rise of Villagers. This year, our overseas success might come from 22-year-old Dubliner Cian Nugent, who has been picking up far-flung plaudits for his newest work, including the tag of ‘genius’ from Conor O’Brien himself. Tenderly produced by Jimmy Eadie (Si Schroeder, Valerie Francis), Doubles is split into two side-long compositions. Peaks & Troughs ebbs and flows beautifully, its passages weaving through nightmarish folk to an intense climax, showcasing Nugent’s talent for fingerpicking as well as composition and pacing. Its flipside is buoyed by the addition of woodwind, brass and gentle tussles with percussion, at times breaking into bittersweet, lilting folk before subtly deviating into jazzy jams. An ambitious but unquestionably rewarding record – and one crucially devoid of pretension, too. 
-- Lauren Murphy 

ALL MUSIC GUIDE REVIEW

Cian Nugent's 2011 album for VHF has a very vinyl-era feeling to it, consisting of two 20- to 25- minute compositions that would have fit perfectly on a Vanguard or Takoma release from 1969 or so. (If either piece had the word "fantasia" in the title, that would seal it.) But that sense of paired work -- a theme spelled out in both the album and song titles -- allows for a kind of direct contrast and complement in turn, and Nugent's exploration in the world of acoustic guitar composition is elegant, engaging stuff. "Peaks & Troughs" begins with slow, extremely deliberate notes before rapidly increasing its pace, never bursting into a sudden explosion of notes or chaos -- this isn't Bill Orcutt, say -- but carefully winding up energy almost like a coiling (if friendly) snake. This balance, in keeping with the song title, recurs throughout the piece; an alternation that carefully follows its own logic each step of the way. The sense of deliberation that holds sway throughout is remarkable, though perhaps the more accurate word is precision, with every exploratory filigree and shift from multiple to solo notes sounding tightly honed without being simply mechanistic, leading into a concluding, sustained feedback zone that suddenly transforms the whole feeling of what has gone beforehand. "Sixes & Sevens," a few minutes longer and no less involving, again showcases Nugent's sense of precision but feels warmer and, in its own way, more expansive, with the soft ringing of a chime slowly alternating with guitar at the beginning, followed by increasingly louder percussion and wind instruments as Nugent's main composition unspools, steadily calming down and then ramping up again. The various moves from unaccompanied to group effort not only help in making the contrast between the two songs more clear, they introduce a feeling of direct joy: there's something uplifting on the song that stands in contrast to "Peaks & Troughs," though there are similar moments of quiet and near starkness as the song reaches mid-length.
-- Ned Raggett 

WHELANS JULY 30TH

Poster design: John Cowhie

WIRE REVIEW

PITCHFORK REVIEW

Versatility is prized among instrumentalists. From Nashville country sessions to New York improvisational explorations, the player who can play it all is the player who will likely have gigs. For instance, while cellist Erik Friedlander has played with John Zorn's Masada Chamber Ensemble and with reed adventurer Ned Rothenberg, he's also worked with Korn, Kelly Clarkson, and the Mountain Goats. While Colin Stetson's star is rising with his new solo opus,New History Warfare Vol. 2: Judges, he's long kept busy with bands from Bon Iver and the National to Angélique Kidjo and Arcade Fire. This is true for guitar soloists, too, but in this realm, the mastery of multiple forms seems to have less to do with a paycheck and more to do with proving you're more than some new-school John Fahey acolyte. From Sir Richard Bishop's pan-everything albums to William Tyler's expansive Behold the Spirit, some of the best guitar music being made right now is that which takes the world in and sounds it back out through a pair of busy hands.

Thankfully, no one bothered to tell young Irish guitarist Cian Nugent about that approach: His first widely available album, Doubles, comprises two side-length tracks that take definitive and defined approaches the distance. There's no emphasis on how much he can do or how much he has studied his forebears; instead, he smartly focuses on developing a pair of immersive environments that are continuously compelling for more than 20 minutes at a time. He nails it. The first side, "Peaks & Troughs", is an ambitious solo workout for guitar and, eventually, synthesizer. As its name suggests, the tune rises to loud, heavy strums and falls to near-silent picking. A more accurate title might have been "Knots & Threads", as Nugent's emphasis seems to be on the horizontal orientation of his music-- that is, the volume matters less than the way he arranges and links his phrases. At points, his hands are busy wrangling great messes of notes that eventually thin out into beautiful and relatively simple statements of melody. Sometimes, though, Nugent is content to examine one note or chord until it resolves into silence, as if he's staring at a huge, tangled ball of yarn but concentrating only on a small, isolated knot somewhere near the middle. That movement creates an inescapable momentum, meaning that, when this track starts, Nugent's deliberately dynamic approach makes it hard to ignore.

That same kinetic energy applies to the grand and arching "Sixes & Sevens", a piece that Nugent developed with a large ensemble of friends playing drums, strings, horns, and keys. A piece of quiet triumph, "Sixes & Sevens" builds around the obvious, continuous guitar line that runs throughout its 24 minutes. Nugent tucks the revelation that he's been listening to music beyond past masters of instrumental guitar into those near-orchestral flourishes. He hints at a free-jazz maelstrom one moment, eerie organ drone music the next; much later, there's a touch of shoegaze rock thanks to some long-tone distortion and a bit of Japanese minimalism via the restraint of the percussion. The perfectly ebullient passages are a mix of Stravinsky, hard bop, and unrepentant pop; given its redemptive sound, it's where the listener finally understands that versatility is something the young Nugent values, too.

If Doubles has a fault, it's that Nugent makes no attempt to hide his influences or to do something they haven't previously done. This is, after all, a form that has often been beleaguered by its own reverence and subservience to idols; its recent renaissance, however, suggests the time for showing you can do what someone else once did has begun to recede. Fahey, Rose, Jones, Blackshaw-- all of the top-shelf names in this realm have gone for extended ruminations in the vein of "Peaks & Troughs". And Jim O'Rourke stands as the acknowledged master of epics such as "Sixes & Sevens", which rise steadily and delicately to glorious but restrained crescendos. Nugent doesn't reinvent either idea on Doubles, but he doesn't have to; he's inarguably mastered them and made them his own, and that's enough for a start.

— Grayson Currin, July 12, 2011

SIXES & SEVENS (EXCERPT II)