Undeniably different, invitingly familiar and as masterful as ever, guitarist Lawson Rollins (www.lawsonrollins.com) heads “True North” on his tenth album, dropping this Friday. The Billboard chart-topping musician-songwriter-producer, who relies upon his mesmerizing classical fingerstyle guitar play to forge a unique path that incorporates contemporary jazz, world music, Latin and New Age, makes records conveying exotic travel, exhilarating adventure and quixotic escape. “True North” continues the quest yet it’s easy to observe a variety of new dimensions spawned from a recent spate of assorted music and film projects.
Named by Guitar Player magazine as one of the “50 Transcedent Acoustic Guitarists” of all-time, the San Francisco-based Rollins curated a collection of his best (“Airwaves: The Greatest Hits”), experimented on “Dark Matter: Music for Film”; scored his first film, “Stay Out Stay Alive,” a multiple award winner and film festival favorite that opened last November (Rollins also served as the movie’s executive producer); and collaborated on a single (“And If You Will Come With Me”) with Israeli superstar singer Idan Raichel. Rollins couldn’t help but be impacted artistically from this diversely prolific period when it came to crafting “True North.” The works expanded his sonic palette with Rollins adding electric and slide guitars, steel string guitar and interesting synthesizer textures alongside his signature classical Spanish nylon string acoustic guitar rhythms and rich melodic expressions.
“True North” is the first album that Rollins produced and recorded all the guitar parts on his own. Renown for dispensing dazzling acoustic guitar arpeggios, scales and harmonies at astonishing speed (showcased in YouTube videos that have received over 10 million views), this outing exhibits sharper focus, self-control and command as he “stays on course” instead of wandering off on prolonged improvisational excursions. The tone of the lead guitar emotes new warmth and purity. Even the album art, featuring sundrenched images taken on the Outer Banks (North Carolina) where Rollins spends a lot of time each year, is filled with light and soft pastels unlike earlier images.
The collection’s first single, “Bluewave Bossanova,” has already been added to the SiriusXM playlist ahead of Friday’s album release.
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