Guitar summits can be awfully dull affairs. But with G the right players - understanding the possibilities of effects and percussive techniques as well as chords, color, and line - they can be dazzling. Like this one. But even before you listen, you know from a glance at the players here that we're a long way from McLaughlin, DiMeola, and DeLucia, sisters and brothers. That's not just because of the quirky recording method, which featured one duo per day, with conscious effort to leave room for the third player to record their contribution subsequently. It has more to do with the way each player here exults in idiomatic properties of the guitar, without being constrained by the instrument's expectations.

The opening trio sets the table, with a full strings ecosystem of wild little buzzes and scuffles. Halvorson is unmistakable at this point, with her cosmic effects and earthy lines contrasting masterfully. And indeed, taking Sharp's flinty playing and Ribot's quirky twang into the equation, counterpoint takes on new meanings here. Instead of mere notes and chords, these pieces are overstuffed with anything sonic that the guitar can produce but with a musical logic that makes intuitive sense and grabs you if your ears are open enough. Chiming, resonant repetitions dot the multi-tracked Halvorson piece "Ship," all loops stacked up and toppling over. There's a fine feature for Ribot and Sharp on acoustic, "Wobbly," with loads of rough woody slashing contrasted with sudden introspection and dynamic shifts. But generally things tend towards the more cosmic ("Shredding Light") or the noisy ("Sinistre" or "I'm Gonna Party Like It's 1998"). Sharp makes nifty use of his Ebow on the resonant "Sequola," where Halvorson plays with an unmediated, emphatic lyricism on her acoustic. And there's a monster drone on "Oronym," which also crawls with little electronic insects
struggling to stay alive under the sonic weight. The final trio returns to the vibe of the opener, darting and slashing everywhere. Lots of settings like this can sound clinical and overly technique-obsessed. These three use the guitar as a springboard to pure, shared invention.

Composer, bandleader, multi-instrumentalist, Elliott Sharp is a musician hard to classify, with equal proficiency in blues-rock, improvisation and new music. Here he concentrates on his main instrument, the guitar, on a dozen solos, duos and a trio with fellow pickers Mary Halvorson and Marc Ribot. Oddly enough, Sharp and Ribot, who specialize in more agitated sounds, both turn almost folksy in duets on Wobbly, Sinistre and Oronym. Although their chess game-like moves are both subtle and spiky on Sinistre, it’s the last track which is most distinctive. Here, one guitarist’s legato finger-picking tries to surmount the other’s canine yapping-like plucked onslaughts, until relaxed string undulations are replaced by a multiplicity of crying buzzes. Blanketing drones dominate the three Halvorson duets, with the strokes on Shredding Light so thin they break into electronic flanges. Slurred fingering and guitar-neck taps enliven both parts of Sequola, although a blanket of buzzes can’t disguise intricate dual connections.

Sharp’s solo work, however, is the most representative. Nektone for instance swiftly unites Delta bottleneck picking and outer-space-like multiphonics without fissure. Meanwhile, Kernel Panic knits together so many passing chords that it’s almost opaque. Then suddenly, with no hint of overdubbing, there seem to be two guitar lines travelling in opposite directions – one with rumbling organ-like ostinato, the other snapping out arena-sized distortion. That he manages to tame these opposites into a reassuring ending that is true to narrative, logical and conclusive, is another tribute to Sharp’s multi-talents.

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