The true test of originality for any musician comes when you hear an instrument being played and you instantly know who’s playing it. For electric guitarists, certainly Hendrix qualifies; Page and Clapton, too. Maybe Eddie Van Halen before the legion of imitators. You probably have your own list, but to us, standing toe-to-toe (or pick-to-pick) with those legends is Television guitarist and solo artist Tom Verlaine. His self-taught, jazz-influenced style, largely devoid of effects, and vibrato tone (oh, that tone!) makes any Verlaine solo unmistakably a Verlaine solo. That he was quite an accomplished, idiosyncratic songwriter is just a bonus. Real Gone Music is very, very proud to announce that we have arranged with the Verlaine estate to release Tom’s last three solo albums on LP, of which this one, 2006’s Around, is the second. Around picks up the lofty mantle of the Warm and Cool album that was released 14 years prior with another set of utterly mesmerizing instrumentals, ranging from solo, almost raga-esque explorations (“Flame”) to post-rock vamps (“Balcony”) to abstract sketches (“A Burned Letter”) to the kind of indescribable, utterly gorgeous beauty that only this man and his guitar could pull off (“Eighty-Eights”). That’s old Television band-mate Billy Ficca on drums; bassist and original engineer Patrick Derivaz’s new mastering for vinyl will make this record sing and breathe along with you (and vice versa). Tom’s long-time partner, artist Jutta Koether, again supplies notes in the enclosed insert. Sunglasses brown pressing for this album’s vinyl debut!
