Viking's Choice 2025: The Guitar

Summary

All Songs Considered: Viking's Choice 2025 – The Guitar

NPR, Host: Robin Hilton, Guest: Lars Gottrich
Aired: December 30, 2025

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Overview

In this special year-end episode, Robin Hilton is joined by NPR Music's Lars Gottrich for the 2025 edition of Viking's Choice. This year’s theme is The Guitar, celebrating the instrument’s versatility and artistry across genres—from fingerstyle folk to power trios, ambient experimentation, and global traditions. Lars curates some of 2025's most captivating guitar-driven music, sharing personal insights and memorable stories about each pick.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Theme: A Year for the Guitar

• Lars announces the theme: “I couldn't help but notice that it was 2025 was just a great year for the guitar… not just rock music… classic guitar, jazz, [and] ambient, but all using my personal favorite instrument. The instrument that I've been playing since I was 12 years old.” (02:16 – 02:48)
• Robin and Lars reflect on Lars’ eclectic taste, his love for the “misshapen misfits music,” and his reputation as “king on the island of Misfit toys.”
• The episode explores not only traditional guitar genres but also how the guitar has inspired innovation and community across the world.

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2. Category: Fingerstyle Renaissance

Gwennifer Raymond – Last Night I Heard the Dog Star Bark ("Bleak Night in Rabbit's Wood")

• Album of the year for Lars.
• Described as a “one-woman speed metal band” with haunting, physical, and tuneful playing.
• Lars: “You feel like you're inside the belly of the guitar when she is playing. It's just so raw and rambling, but so tuneful… you feel the physicality of her hands and her body.” (05:27 – 06:00)
• Noted for her multidisciplinary talents: astrophysicist, video game creator, and guitarist.
• Discussion on the revival of fingerstyle guitar—influence from Jack Rose, growing public appetite for human, organic performance as a backlash to AI, and cultural moments like film and TV soundtracks.

Hayden Pedigo – I’ll Be Waving As You Drive Away ("Houndstooth")

• Showcases storytelling and lyrical guitar.
• Robin: “It is just… sometimes hard to make music this calming when it has so much movement in it, because there's quite a lot of movement in this. But he does it so beautifully.” (10:46 – 10:57)
• Lars highlights how Pedigo’s touch is both “delicate and demonstrative,” building a unique personal style that feels like storytelling without words.

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3. Category: Power Trio Reimagined

Takat – Is Noise Volume One ("Ishmar")

• Composed of MDU Mokhtar's backing band, adding punk and dub to Tuareg desert blues tradition.
• Robin: “It is like the music of life.” (14:34 – 14:38)
• Lars: “There's a little bit more dub… and a bit more, like, punk attitude… they specifically cited Fugazi.” (14:38 – 14:54)
• Live performance energy described as “vibrating… thrashing in place” (15:01 – 15:24)
• Commentary on scarcity and creativity: Even made under “extreme or limiting conditions,” this music becomes “larger than life.” (15:56 – 16:08)

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4. Category: Restrung Repertoire

Rafael Toral – Traveling Light ("You Don't Know What Love Is")

• Portuguese artist transforming jazz standards into ambient, slow-moving pieces.
• Robin: “It really is like he took a little piece of audio and used this tool… to stretch audio. You can turn like a 5 second audio clip into an hour long ambient piece just by stretching it out.” (20:58 – 21:25)
• Lars: “Every chord change feels like a triumph. That's kind of like the magic of this record… it really does feel like you are traveling through space.” (21:25 – 21:49)
• Sparking memories of hearing guitar deconstructed for the first time—Robin cites Adrian Belew; Lars recalls Keith Rowe. (22:07 – 23:07)

Laura Snowden – This Changing Sky (Title Track)

• Classical guitarist acclaimed for composing as well as performing.
• Robin: “She uses space and really lets this piece breathe. I mean, that's my favorite kind of guitar playing, honestly.” (25:11 – 25:21)
• Snowden’s work is used in guitar schools to grade technical progress—a testament to her compositional skill.
• Vocals woven into the guitar in an “eerie and unexpected, but very beautiful” way. (26:28 – 26:55)

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5. Category: Guitar in Conversation & Community

Madala Kunene & Sibusile Xaba – QuanTu ("Wam Fana")

• South African master and student duo, blending Zulu tradition with jazz fusion.
• Robin: “I love the sense of community and the comfort that you find in it, in that sort of call and response…” (29:08 – 29:29)
• Lars: “It just sounds like a conversation between two guitars… they've just become one. It's very earthy and meditative.” (29:38 – 30:22)
• Encourages listeners to explore classic Zulu guitar compilations from the 1950s and 60s.

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6. Category: Ambient/Experimental – Spacing Out

William Tyler – Time Indefinite ("Star of Hope")

• A more experimental and ambient direction for Tyler.
• Lars: “He's contending with a broken world and he's using music to find his way out.” (32:29 – 32:42)
• Features a hymnal melody discovered on AM radio, subtly sampled into the mix.
• Robin: “It's not at all what I was expecting from him… experimental… there's a Seed of Hope in this record.” (34:24 – 35:13)

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7. Category: Keep Guitar Weird

Jorge Espinal – Bombos y Cencerros ("Ají de Pollera")

• Peruvian guitarist creating rhythm and percussion from the guitar’s body and strings, looping everything live.
• Lars: “He really thinks about the physicality of the guitar itself and the rhythms that it can create… a one-man band situation.” (36:47 – 37:27)
• Song title translates to “Chicken Restaurant Chili Sauce”—playful, inventive music.
• Lars: “Any object can become an instrument. What makes it one is intention.” (39:26 – 39:38)

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8. Grand Finale: Guitar Heroics

Vernon Reid (of Living Colour) – Hoodoo Telemetry ("Meditation on the Last Time I Saw Arthur Rhames")

• Living Color's Vernon Reid delivers virtuosic, genre-blending guitar on his solo record.
• Lars: “I planted myself right in front of Vernon Reed specifically to watch him do his mastery… It's just so fun. It's got Living color vibes… but it's essentially his version of a fusion record.” (40:05 – 40:28)
• Sweet moment: Lars describes playing air guitar with his daughter to the track: “She starts air guitar. And so I pick her up and I use her body as an air guitar… it is the sweetest thing in the world.” (41:15 – 41:30)

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Notable Quotes & Moments

• On community & discovery:
  Robin: “You are the king on the island of Misfit toys.” (01:18)
  Lars: “What makes [an object an instrument] is intention.” (39:37)

• On the magic of the guitar:
  Lars: “You feel like you're inside the belly of the guitar when she [Gwennifer Raymond] is playing.” (05:34)
  Robin (on Hayden Pedigo): “Such a lyrical guitar player… a storyteller without words.” (10:57 – 11:27)

• On genres blending and boundaries breaking:
  Robin (on Takat): “It is like the music of life.” (14:34) Lars (on Rafael Toral): “Every chord change feels like a triumph.” (21:25) Robin (on Laura Snowden): “I love how she uses space… lets this piece breathe.” (25:11)

• On playfulness and intention:
  Lars (on Jorge Espinal): “I think that any object can become an instrument. What makes it one is intention.” (39:37)

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Key Timestamps

• 02:02: This year's theme: The Guitar
• 03:01–06:15: Gwennifer Raymond & the fingerstyle renaissance
• 06:15–08:55: Dialogue on why fingerstyle has resurged—AI backlash, "sinner's effect," and cultural revivals
• 09:02–11:45: Hayden Pedigo’s storytelling guitar
• 11:45–16:28: Power trios: Takat and the modern desert blues
• 18:04–23:07: Restrung Repertoire: Rafael Toral and Laura Snowden
• 27:15–31:18: Duo conversation: Madala Kunene & Sibusile Xaba, Zulu tradition
• 32:02–36:14: Ambient/Experimental: William Tyler and the search for hope
• 36:16–39:50: Keep Guitar Weird: Jorge Espinal’s percussive experiments
• 39:51–41:48: Finale: Vernon Reid’s virtuosic celebration, air-guitar jams with his daughter

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Conclusion

The Viking’s Choice 2025 Guitar episode is a sonic adventure across genres, continents, and eras. From Welsh fingerstyle prodigies to South African guitar duos, desert blues powerhouses, and avant-garde experimenters, Lars and Robin illuminate the guitar’s limitless reinvention. The show closes with a heartfelt and playful tribute to guitar heroes, underlining why this instrument—and the communities built around it—continue to capture the imagination.

Further Listening

Check out the extended Viking’s Choice list at NPR Music. As Robin says:
"Listen to this podcast and if you want more, check out npr.org allspace songs and you'll get, you'll get like a much longer list of guitar stuff if that's what you're into." (41:54 – 42:06)

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End of summary.

Transcript

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[Robin Hilton]

What is this? Oh, this is the holiday script.

[Lars Gottrich]

I mean, yeah. Hey, let's do it. All right.

[Robin Hilton]

PHONE RINGS it's me.

[Lars Gottrich]

Go, Robin Hilton.

[Robin Hilton]

Hey, are you almost ready? I'm pulling up soon.

[Lars Gottrich]

I'm basted my turkeys.

[Robin Hilton]

Okay, that's.

[Lars Gottrich]

That's not it. That's not the line. Okay, you're not.

[Robin Hilton]

You can't do this show. You're fired. I'm sorry, Lars. Merry Christmas. You're not fired. Let's do a show. It's All Songs Considered. I'm Robin Hilton. Lars Gottrich here.

[Lars Gottrich]

Ooh, it's me.

[Robin Hilton]

Editor of the Tiny Desk series.

[Lars Gottrich]

That's right. Yeah.

[Robin Hilton]

You pop up from time to time on the show here throughout the year.

[Lars Gottrich]

And we do a little thing called Viking's Choice as well.

[Robin Hilton]

Yeah, a recurring series. You are the creator and curator of the Viking's Choice series, where you highlight all of the. Well, I'm just gonna call it the wild and weird and wonderful music that you discover throughout any given year.

[Lars Gottrich]

The Misshapen Misfits music. Yeah.

[Robin Hilton]

You are the king on the island of Misfit toys.

[Lars Gottrich]

Yes.

[Robin Hilton]

And it's something I've always loved about you, Lars. I mean, I think you've got maybe the wildest range of musical tastes of anybody I've ever known. You're the only one I've ever known who could listen to just the screamiest, loudest, just thrashiest metal and then go right from that to some, like, really sweet Christian contemporary pop song. Or.

[Lars Gottrich]

I did bring sixpence none the retcher to the Tiny Desk.

[Robin Hilton]

You did. And it was beautiful. It was our great holiday show. That's up now, if people haven't checked that out. Well, we close every year with a special Vikings Choice retrospective, and that's what we're doing on this episode of All Songs Considered. You usually pick a theme. I think last year's was music for catharsis and calm.

[Lars Gottrich]

Yeah.

[Robin Hilton]

What is it this year?

[Lars Gottrich]

The guitar.

[Robin Hilton]

The guitar.

[Lars Gottrich]

The guitar.

[Robin Hilton]

Or it really is. How you say it. Or the guitar.

[Lars Gottrich]

Or the guitar. Yeah, or the guitar.

[Robin Hilton]

And it really is a range of stuff that you brought here, from the sweet to. Well, it's actually all pretty beautiful stuff.

[Lars Gottrich]

I think you. I think so. I just noticed. I was, you know, I like to put together like a theme that kind of ties everything together. And I couldn't help but notice that it was 2025 was just a great year for the guitar and not just rock music, not just the finger style, American primitive kind of stuff, but all the stuff that was kind of in between. Classic guitar, jazz, ambient, but all using my personal favorite instrument. The instrument that I've been playing since I was 12 years old.

[Robin Hilton]

What do you want to start with?

[Lars Gottrich]

I think we gotta start with my album of the year, Gwennifer Raymond. The album's called Last Night I Heard the Dog Star Bark. This is the song Bleak Night in Rabbit's Wood.

[Robin Hilton]

Bleak Night.

[Lars Gottrich]

Bleak Night in Rabbit's. Yeah.

[Robin Hilton]

This is really nice. I read your write up that you had in your top 10 list of things and you compared her to, I think, speed metal. Yeah.

[Lars Gottrich]

Like a one woman speed metal band. Yeah.

[Robin Hilton]

Which I actually think, you know, that's. That's a way that I've always described like flat picking, you know, which is kind of more in the Appalachian bluegrass world than this is that style of playing. But it has that. It has kind of an intensity to it that's easy to miss because it's otherwise so beautiful.

[Lars Gottrich]

She is a Welsh guitarist. She's also an astrophysicist.

[Robin Hilton]

Oh, wow.

[Lars Gottrich]

Yeah. And she.

[Robin Hilton]

How many other musicians can you name who are astrophysicists?

[Lars Gottrich]

Isn't Brian May.

[Robin Hilton]

Yes, I was gonna say one. There's one other one that I know, Brian May, guitarist for Queen.

[Lars Gottrich]

But yeah. She also apparently makes video games.

[Robin Hilton]

Oh, wow.

[Lars Gottrich]

Yeah. She's a triple threat. Triple threat. She can do video games.

[Robin Hilton]

She's an astrophysicist and she can play.

[Lars Gottrich]

The guitar like this. She can play the guitar. I mean, I recently saw her perform at Rhizome, which is a small venue here in D.C. and my bones were just buzzing.

[Robin Hilton]

Oh, wow.

[Lars Gottrich]

Like throughout, it's just like you feel like you're inside the belly of the guitar when she is playing. It's just so raw and rambling, but so tuneful. She always knows how to return to the theme, which is, you know, sometimes a lot of finger style guitarists, they just like to. They just like to jam. But she always has the theme in mind and she always brings it back. But you feel the physicality of her hands and her body on the body of this guitar and on these strings. And so I just found this record so alive and haunting.

[Robin Hilton]

Oh, that's a good word for it. Let me ask you this because you mentioned that the guitar has certainly had A strong gear. But fingerstyle guitar in particular, you noted in your write up for this has had a really strong gear. I'm wondering if you have an idea for why it's had such a strong gear, why it's kind of having this renaissance, you know, Because I have a couple theories.

[Lars Gottrich]

You have some theories. I mean, the thing I think about is it's been. It's been over a decade since Jack Rose died. And he was kind of the person who, in my mind at least, kind of revitalized interest in the fingerstyle guitar tradition. And there are already a lot of musicians who are working in that mold during his time. But I think in the wake of his death, and there's just so much outpouring of love that his spirit has just continued ever since. And Gwennifer Raymond, in fact, she appeared on a tribute album to Jack Rose and she repurposed her tribute for this record. So that was really nice to see.

[Robin Hilton]

Yeah.

[Lars Gottrich]

But I'm curious. Why do you think fingerstyle is having such a.

[Robin Hilton]

Well, I don't know. Maybe my. My theories might seem kind of dumb now after that beautiful answer that you just gave me. But I. I mean, one, I think I'm going to go with AI backlash.

[Lars Gottrich]

I mean, that's real.

[Robin Hilton]

I mean, people, even if they're not aware of it, I think people want something real and organic and entirely human. And it's hard to get any more real organic or human than fingerstyle guitar. I think the second reason is what I would call the Sinner's effect.

[Lars Gottrich]

Oh, yeah, maybe.

[Robin Hilton]

I mean, sort of like what happened with after the movie oh Brother, Where Art Thou? Came out, which has been astoundingly like 25 years ago now. But, you know, that movie came out, had all this amazing folk and Americana roots music in it. And there was this real revival of that kind of music. They were selling out. The. The artists who were featured in that film were selling out huge auditoriums afterwards. And I don't know, I think that movie was really full of. And celebrated folk in Americana and certainly the blues. And people were just reminded of how amazing it is and are starting to engage with it. And actually, I think going back to the Gwynethe, as beautiful as it is, as you say, there's something kind of haunting in it. There's this sort of darker undercurrent to it, which also really fits in with that whole Sinner's universe, I think, which you haven't even seen because you don't watch scary movies, right?

[Lars Gottrich]

I'll watch it. Eventually, I just got to work up the nerve.

[Robin Hilton]

Well, you should see it for the music, if nothing else.

[Lars Gottrich]

I mean, honestly, I hear it's basically like a horror musical, right?

[Robin Hilton]

Yeah, I guess you could call it that.

[Lars Gottrich]

Okay. Yeah.

[Robin Hilton]

Yeah. So the Gwynethe Bleak Night in Rabbit's Wood. What a great title from last night. I heard the dog star bark. Where do you want to go next?

[Lars Gottrich]

I think we stick with fingerstyle just to show the kind of, like, the flip side of what happened with that this year. Hayden Pedigo from Texas. So I put out this record called I'll be Waving as you drive away this year, and he just kind of keeps getting better at what he does. And this is a record where he kind of leaned a little bit more into arrangements with strings and kind of like a little bit of a band. This is a song called Houndstooth. Sam.

[Robin Hilton]

This is the perfect, perfect exhalation. It is just. And it's. I think it's sometimes hard to make music this calming when it has so much movement in it, because there's quite a lot of movement in this. But he does it so beautifully.

[Lars Gottrich]

He's such a lyrical guitar player. I think I've said this several times on this podcast, but he really is a storyteller without words. But he's really become a master of it in a way where if you were to just play me a song not knowing who it was, I would know it was Hayden because he has such a delicate touch, but one that is one that is delicate and demonstrative at the same time, if that's possible.

[Robin Hilton]

Yeah. And the idea of storytelling, this song itself feels like it has chapters and breaks in it where it's really taking you on this journey. It's definitely telling a story well, Hayden Pedigo, that's really beautiful. The song Houndstooth from I'll Be Waving as yous Drive Away. Let's keep it going.

[Lars Gottrich]

So 2025, I think, was also the year of the power trio. You're familiar with this term, Robyn?

[Robin Hilton]

Well, yes, I've heard the term. Power trio. Yes.

[Lars Gottrich]

Yeah. So, like, the kind of, like, the prototypical power trio is like Rush or like the King Crimson album Red, where it's like three people who are virtuosos at their instruments, at their absolute peak, just ripping and shredding, but making songs. Not just jamming, but they're making songs. And typically it's a guitar, bass, and drums. Not always, but usually. And so I could easily make you a top 10 list of the year in power trios. It was, like, shockingly great year for that format of band, so I had a hard time picking one, but I did pick one, and it's this group called Takat, and they are essentially MDU Mokhtar's backing band. So if you know MDU Mokhtar, the incredible Tuareg guitarist, that's kind of the vibe here, but there's a little bit more. So we're going to play a track, and I hope I don't mess up the pronunciation. I probably will. Ishmar. And this is from the mini album called Is Noise Volume One. Sh.

[Robin Hilton]

Love the Desert Blues.

[Lars Gottrich]

Yeah.

[Robin Hilton]

Music of the Sahara. You mentioned Moktar. I. I certainly thought of him, thought of Tanarwin.

[Lars Gottrich]

Yeah.

[Robin Hilton]

Incredible. It is like the music of life.

[Lars Gottrich]

Here's where it's like, there's a little bit of a tweak on the formula. They kind of add a little bit more dub.

[Robin Hilton]

Interesting.

[Lars Gottrich]

And a bit more, like, punk attitude to everything. Like, they specifically cited, like, Fugazi.

[Robin Hilton]

Oh, wow. I mean, I certainly. I mean, punk has always been sort of. I mean, certainly in the spirit of this kind of music.

[Lars Gottrich]

And I saw them live also at Rhizome. I mean, it's just one of my favorite places to see music. And it was so loud and the energy was so high, like, I was vibrating. Like, the whole room was just like. Everybody's nodding their heads. Everybody's kind of like doing thrashing in place, basically because we're all packed into this, like, small space, and it's just. It's a lot more loose and a lot more expansive than MDU Mokhtar, who has kind of, like, gone into more. Kind of like, Jimi Hendrix mode of recent. Which I don't mind at all. It's just kind of like. I love the different avenues that Takat has taken with their music. They came out with two volumes of this Is Noise series, and the second one is Even Stranger, and I love it.

[Robin Hilton]

Well, you talk about how expansive it is. I mean, one of the things that's always amazed me about the Desert Blues is that very often this music is made under extreme or limiting conditions. Not a lot of resources. It's incredibly diy, and yet it just is, so. It's larger than life. It's just. It sounds incredible. So Takhat. And we're going to say that the name of the song is Ishmar. It's is G H M A R from is Noise Volume 1.

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[Lars Gottrich]

When I was putting together this show, I kind of made categories. So we heard the Power Trio. We heard kind of like the finger style tradition. This new one I'm calling Restrung Repertoire.

[Robin Hilton]

Restrung Repertoire.

[Lars Gottrich]

Yeah. So when you think of repertoire, you think of like classical music or like maybe the Great American Songbook or jazz or things like that. So here's reimaginings of those things. So the first thing that I thought of, there's this Portuguese artist who's been around for decades named Rafael Toral. He has this new record called Traveling Light, where he has taken jazz standards and completely stretched them out into almost unrecognizable pieces from which they originally came. And so we're going to listen to youo Don't Know what Love Is, which is a song that Miles Davis made popular.

[Robin Hilton]

So this is a pretty long piece. I just want to jump ahead. Let's go maybe about a little more than a minute and a half or so in and hear how it evolves. So getting some very clearly actual guitar there. Let's, let's jump even further ahead.

[Lars Gottrich]

Sam.

[Robin Hilton]

Just about the only moment where you can kind of hear where the song is coming from. Like the, the melody that it's, it's sort of rooted in, but it's a little creepy.

[Lars Gottrich]

Real Twin Peaks vibe.

[Robin Hilton]

Very Twin Peaks. Kind of reminded me a little bit of the film Angel Heart, which you probably also haven't seen since it's Also a very. It's a great movie. Had a very similar sound to this. But it's. It's like. I think you intro this by saying he stretches these out. It really is like he took a little piece of audio and used this tool that you can use to stretch audio. You can turn like a 5 second audio clip into an hour long ambient piece just by stretching it out.

[Lars Gottrich]

I mean, every chord change feels like a triumph. That's kind of like the magic of this record is that it's so slow and yet you are so engaged with its slowness, I think, because the way that it moves, it really does feel like you are traveling through space. And when something changes, it's noticeable. And it's like. And it feels like significant. And those little droney things. That could be a guitar or it could be like those electronics that he developed over the years. But I like that I don't know which it is. Yeah.

[Robin Hilton]

Do you remember the first time you heard a guitar sound like anything other than a guitar? And you. And you realized that there's this whole universe of sound that you can get out of a guitar that was nothing like you've ever heard before?

[Lars Gottrich]

Oh, 100%. There's this British musician named Keith Rowe, and he makes the guitar sound like. Nothing like the guitar.

[Robin Hilton]

So were you like high school or something?

[Lars Gottrich]

I think it was like sometimes college, maybe.

[Robin Hilton]

Yeah, for me, it was Adrian Ballou. And I was in high school and I listened to Laurie Anderson's Mr. Heartbreak and I thought, what are these wild sounds? And back then you could pick up the. The album and read the liner notes. And I read the credit. I was like, who's Adrian Ballew? And I ended up getting into all of his solo stuff. And I actually even remember listening to one of his songs that was kind of more of an ambient piece, a little bit kind of like this. And a friend of mine said, you know, that's guitar, right? And my mind was blown. I thought, what? I just assumed it was synths or something, you know. And this was 45 years ago.

[Lars Gottrich]

So we just listened to Raphael Toral. The record's called Traveling Light. I kind of want to stick with this theme of the re Strong repertoire.

[Robin Hilton]

All right.

[Lars Gottrich]

This is a new artist to me, but someone who's been making music for a long time. Her name's Laura Snowden. She is a British French classical guitarist. Her work came to my attention through John Darnell of the Mountain Goats. He shouted her out and I was like, oh, I should check out her music. She's Considered one of the finest classical guitarists in the world, apparently. But she mostly does live performance. And this is technically her debut album. It's called this Changing sky. And this is the title track it.

[Robin Hilton]

Sam. So I'm pretty sure she's playing a nylon string guitar here. Classical string guitar. But it almost sounds like a lute or something.

[Lars Gottrich]

Yeah, it does have a kind of tonality to it.

[Robin Hilton]

Yeah. Really, really beautiful, though. I love how she uses space and really lets this piece breathe. I mean, that's my favorite kind of guitar playing, honestly.

[Lars Gottrich]

I mean, I am not in any way comparing myself to Loris Noden, but when I'm in my home, I have a nylon string guitar just sitting in my living room. And this is. You know what? I'm just kind of like noodling. That's the kind of like the kind of music I like to make. But these are pieces that she wrote. She normally performs others repertoire, but apparently I read some interviews and reviews of her music and apparently the pieces that she writes are used for like guitar schools. Oh, wow. They're used to like grade students on their progress.

[Robin Hilton]

Is it because of the technicality in them?

[Lars Gottrich]

The technicality or like the technique that you have to use or kind of like the way that you have to voice different phrasings?

[Robin Hilton]

Yeah, I mean, that's the thing. Slower sometimes is harder because then you really have to start focusing in on the tone that you're producing and exactly how your fingers are hitting the strings. Is she singing on this? Kind of.

[Lars Gottrich]

So she doesn't sing. She has guests on this record who kind of. This is also her first foray into voice. So she wrote text for a lot of people. This one is. These are wordless voicings right here. But her communication with the voice is very interesting to me because they're very much in conversation, the voice and the guitar on this record in a way that's eerie and unexpected, but very beautiful.

[Robin Hilton]

Well, again, I like it when the creepy and beautiful come together. Yeah, two great things that are great together. And it's really. She does that really, really beautifully on this. I was not expecting that voice to come in. It's unnerving. So Laura Snowden, and that was the title cut to her album, this Changing Sky. Where do you want to go next, Lars?

[Lars Gottrich]

I think we go to South Africa. There's this duo I came across, Madala Kunene and Sibusile Shaba. One is a master, is a teacher, and the other is the student, basically. And they decided to make a record together basically in a week. With a group of their friends and it's just like perfect Sunday afternoon music for me. So this is a track called Wam Fana from the album Quantu.

[Robin Hilton]

Yeah, this is glorious. Perfect Sunday morning record. You're right. We did that whole show on Sunday Morning Records back this past spring. You and Hazel Sills and I did this would have worked very well on that, that episode. I love the sense of community and the comfort that you find in it, in that sort of call and response and you hear.

[Lars Gottrich]

And even without. There are a lot of songs on this record that are just instrumental and it just, it just sounds like a conversation.

[Robin Hilton]

Yeah.

[Lars Gottrich]

Between two guitars. It's very easy. Sometimes I can tell which guitarist it is because the younger one, he tends to favor electric guitar. And so he has maybe a little bit more of like a jazz fusion vibe. But there are lots of points where you can't tell who's playing what. And so it's not necessarily like the student becoming the master. It's just kind of like they've just become one. It's very earthy and meditative. And this comes out of the Zulu tradition, which if you've never, never done a dive into Zulu guitar music, it is just a joy. Like there are so many compilations of Zulu guitar music that are, you know, just go search one on the Internet and especially ones that are like from the 50s and 60s. It's just, it's just people making music in community with each other and you feel the warmth and happiness of that community.

[Robin Hilton]

Well, Madala Kanene, totally new to me. He's kind of a legend though in South Africa, isn't he?

[Lars Gottrich]

Yeah, well, these were new names to me, but it was such a, like a happy discovery. But yeah, he's been making music for decades, like forever.

[Robin Hilton]

I love how you switched into your FM radio. For decades he's been making music.

[Lars Gottrich]

And Sibu Sile Saba. He has said in interviews where he was like, this guy is an absolute legend. But nobody knows who he is outside of South Africa. And it's time even in this late age, for that to change.

[Robin Hilton]

Good stuff.

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[Lars Gottrich]

So this record we just talked about in the next one, I'm grouping slightly under the category Clear Some Space out so we can space Out.

[Robin Hilton]

Clear some space out so we can space out. So we can space out.

[Lars Gottrich]

So this is actually a reference to a song by Shabazz Palaces, the great hip hop duo. I think about this lyric a lot in my life. And so clear some space out so we can space out. And, you know, we just heard from Madala Kunene, and that allows you to kind of, like, ease into your day and have a beautiful awakening, so to speak. This next record is more. I'm in the fog. I don't know what I'm doing here, but I hope that I can find my way out of it. And that's this gorgeous record by William Tyler, who has been making music for a long time now, but has kind of found his way into some stranger avenues. He put out a record earlier this year with Fortet that was completely surprising, but it rules. It's really cool. That one's worth checking out as well. But he also made this record called Time Indefinitely, and it feels like he's contending with a broken world and he's using music to find his way out. This song is called Star of Hope. Sam.

[Robin Hilton]

You've programmed this really well. Lars Chef's kiss to the sequencing here.

[Lars Gottrich]

Thank you.

[Robin Hilton]

This is really, really beautiful. It's not at all what I was expecting from him. I tend to think of him as having maybe a little more, I don't know, traditional American kind of sound. But this whole record is kind of a little more experimental, I guess you would say.

[Lars Gottrich]

A bit more woozy. Yeah, I feel like that's been happening a lot this year, actually. Daniel Bachmann also put out a record that sounds nothing like guitar but is doing the same thing. Steve Gunn put out a record called Music for Writers that is very spacious and ambient, but in time, indefinite. I kind of kept coming back to it because there's a seed. To use the song title, there's a Seed of Hope in this record that.

[Robin Hilton]

I feels like a hymnal. Is it like a cover or a.

[Lars Gottrich]

So he apparently found this song on an AM radio station, like a hymn AM radio station. And he decided to incorporate the melody into the psalm, but as you can hear, it's gritty and static.

[Robin Hilton]

There's like some weird choir sample or something in the background.

[Lars Gottrich]

Yeah, I think it's from that AM broadcast.

[Robin Hilton]

Oh, okay. So, like, maybe he Just got his phone out or something.

[Lars Gottrich]

Yeah. And it was like, this is beautiful. I need to keep this.

[Robin Hilton]

Well, it's really gorgeous. It almost sounds like a Ling Zhang or something like that.

[Lars Gottrich]

Yeah, yeah. It kind of has like a. Hey, this year was hard. Here's to trying to make a better one.

[Robin Hilton]

Well, and he's very clearly not covering it, but interacting with it, if that makes sense.

[Lars Gottrich]

Absolutely, yeah.

[Robin Hilton]

Kind of playing with it. So Star of Hope from Time indefinite from William Tyler. Really beautiful.

[Lars Gottrich]

I want to get wacky.

[Robin Hilton]

I've been waiting for you to throw it into another gear here. I'm like, when's the speed metal coming? Because that's technically guitar, you know, like, are you to yank the rug out from under me at some moment here?

[Lars Gottrich]

I'm classifying this as Keep guitar weird.

[Robin Hilton]

I'm all for it.

[Lars Gottrich]

There's this Peruvian guitarist based out of Buenos Aires named Jorge Espinal and he put out this record called Bambos y Senceros.

[Robin Hilton]

Drums and Cowbells.

[Lars Gottrich]

Yeah, that's basically what that means. Yeah. Yeah. All right. And he is. His whole thing, he works. Works primarily in experimental rock bands and in like improv groups. And he put out this record that really thinks about the physicality of the guitar itself and the rhythms that it can create. So that can include the strings, but it can include the body. And then what he does is he throws that all into looper pedals and maybe has some like other percussion on hand. Apparently he will perform all these instruments at once with his hands and feet.

[Robin Hilton]

Oh, wow.

[Lars Gottrich]

And so the whole thing is kind of like a joyous racket. So here's the track and I'm going to do my darnedest to pronounce this correctly. Aji de Pollera.

[Robin Hilton]

You really hit that out.

[Lars Gottrich]

It means Chicken Restaurant Chili Sauce. It's. Yeah.

[Robin Hilton]

The guitar itself is. Is kind of buried in a way. It's easy to miss if you're not paying attention. But once you lock into that groove, it works so well. And it hadn't occurred to me until you mentioned it leading into playing this song, that all the other percussive sound sounds are from him hitting the guitar, hitting the guitar.

[Lars Gottrich]

Or he has little bells or things to the side that he's maybe. Maybe the bells are like actually attached to the guitar itself. Yeah. You know, so he's just kind of like a one man band situation. Yeah, yeah.

[Robin Hilton]

It's very cool. I don't think you need to know that the name of the song is Chicken Restaurant Chili Sauce.

[Lars Gottrich]

I mean, it's Spicy.

[Robin Hilton]

I mean, but it helps. I mean, just in kind of clocking the sense of play in this, even as it's cool. I mean, this is a very cool song, but it's kind of playful, too.

[Lars Gottrich]

Well, I read a great interview with him on. There's a site called A Closer Listen, and he says, I think that any object can become an instrument. What makes it one is intention.

[Robin Hilton]

Oh, yeah.

[Lars Gottrich]

1,000%.

[Robin Hilton]

Yeah. Brilliant.

[Lars Gottrich]

So I love this record. Jorge Espinal, the record Bombos e Ciel. It can be a challenging listen, sure, but it's a lot of fun.

[Robin Hilton]

Have we arrived at the end of the show?

[Lars Gottrich]

Here we're at the end of the show.

[Robin Hilton]

Oh, you have one more thing that you want to play?

[Lars Gottrich]

Yeah, I do.

[Robin Hilton]

All right, let's do it.

[Lars Gottrich]

So one of my greatest joys this year was to see Living Color perform at the tiny desk.

[Robin Hilton]

Oh, man.

[Lars Gottrich]

Oh, my gosh.

[Sponsor/Advertisement Voice]

Yeah.

[Lars Gottrich]

Like, talk about one of the. Probably one of the greatest American rock bands of all time. Each one of those players is like a virtuoso of their instrument. But I planted myself right in front of Vernon Reed specifically to watch him do his mastery, his wizardry of the guitar. I mean, I've never seen anything like it, especially so up close. And so he put out a solo record called Hoodoo Telemetry. That's just. It's just so fun. It's got Living color vibes to it, because it has to, because it's Vernon Reed, but it's essentially his version of a fusion record. It's got some hip hop on it, it's got some jazz on it, but it's also just got some good dang old guitar shred. And sometimes that's exactly what I want. The song that we're about to play, meditation on the Last Time I Saw Arthur Rhames, which is a great song title. I was playing it and my kid was hanging around, and because she knows that I like to air guitar when I'm listening to music, she starts air guitar. And so I pick her up and I use her body as an air guitar. And yes, there is video of this. I will send it to Robin, but nobody else. But it is the sweetest thing in the world.

[Robin Hilton]

My kids are too big for me to do that. Both of them are already bigger than I am. I can't pick them up anymore. But that's awesome. All right, well, we'll go out on this. Lars from Vernon Reed, meditation on the Last Time I saw Arthur Rhames from Hoodoo Telemetry. Thanks for Another weird and wonderful and wondrous year. Lars.

[Lars Gottrich]

Absolutely. I think I'm planning to write a longer version of this list.

[Robin Hilton]

Awesome. Do it.

[Lars Gottrich]

So listen to this podcast and if you want more, check out npr.org allspace songs and you'll get, you'll get like a much longer list of guitar stuff if that's what you're into.

[Robin Hilton]

Now, you got to do it.

[Lars Gottrich]

Now I got to do it.

[Robin Hilton]

All right. And for NPR Music, I'm Robin Hilton. It's All Songs Considered.

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[Robin Hilton]

This is Ira Glass on this American Life. We tell stories about when things change. Like for this guy David, whose entire life took a sharp, unexpected and very unpleasant turn. And it did take me a while to realize it's basically because the monkey pressed the button. That's right, because the monkey pressed the button. Surprising stories every week. Wherever you get your podcasts.