Lyle Brewer “Juno” Album Review

I am typically not one for instrumental albums- or artists, really for that matter. Instrumental music, more often than not, falls flat for me. Feels like background music. Lacks a story, repeated A and B parts with some flourishing and improvisation. I have seen it before and while fun to play, sitting through an hour or an hour and a half of it, I could maybe do without. Lyle Brewer absolutely shatters the mold on that thought. This man, is something special and has the power to make each note speak as if he was using words, but he isn’t.

“Juno” is simple and stripped down in its arrangement but in its being is anything but. Brewer manages to insert a whole host of emotions in the music here. “Winter Moth” initiates in an uplifting almost “Thile does Bach” sort of a way, then on tracks like “Bloom” he quickly becomes melancholy and introspective. There is a chase and a yearn in his music. Searching for something and you are along for the ride as he explores his own emotions through these songs that he has crafted. The guitarist sinks his whole self into these songs, that is clear.

I feel as though we all too often call art “beautiful”. So much so that the word becomes almost valueless or inconsequential. Well, I mean it when I say that Brewer’s music is beauty in it’s most pure form. It is intense and passionate and thoughtful. How he manages to take 12 songs with just a guitar and create tapestries for so many emotions to unveil themselves is unbelievable to me. A truly brilliant talent.