Shel Plock - Arcade Moon Echoes (2023) Hi Res

Inspired by the architecture, ambience, and haunted charm of Glen Echo Park — an historic amusement park just outside of the District of Columbia — this album features improvised electric guitar and alto saxophone getting sometimes melodic and sometimes shambolic over spooky synths and a blend of electronic and acoustic beats.

It's a bit of jazz and a bit of not-jazz with a shadowy late evening feel — right for setting the tone for an after-hours stroll across the grounds of an old haunted amusement park.

***

LANDSCAPES FAMILIAR AND YET SURREAL

I have known Shelly Blake-Plock at this point for probably nearly two decades.

There is not space enough here to go over all the contexts of our collaborations and shenanigans, but my partner likes to remind me that the first time we saw Shelly play, in a quasi-Jazz trio, he lit his tongue on fire with a turntable stylus.

Suffice it to say that one thing I can count on is that when Shelly is making music, I can make no assumptions except that the ideas will be complex, the commitment will be total, and I will be surprised at least once. This record does not disappoint on any of those fronts.

Shelly excels at imagining, creating, and inhabiting new idea-spaces. It is incredibly fun to hear this kind of world-building approach applied to the making of a record.

This album is a moody midnight stroll through a landscape cast into shadows by flickering neon a mix of old and new. Tight electronic beats underpinning lurking synths, with shimmering lines traced out above by sax and guitar echoing each other beneath the dark night sky.

Time both stretched and compressed. Infinite and impossible. Familiar and yet surreal. A waking dream that you can revisit over and over again.

For all that Shelly is a prolific world-builder, he is also deeply secretive. So, I am delighted to get the opportunity to inhabit this particular musical landscape. Here’s to hoping we get lots more of these landscapes to wander through in the future.