Gordian Knot - A Shaman’s Whisper ft. Paul Masvidal (original solos)

Please enjoy this previously unreleased version of “A Shaman’s Whisper“ by Gordian Knot. While recording Gordian Knot’s album Emergent, Sean Malone requested Paul Masvidal to record three guitar solos for the track “Shaman’s Whisper“. However, in the final mix, the first solo was replaced with a chapman stick solo. Here is the track featuring the three original guitar solos. Lineup - Bill Bruford: Slit Drum Jason Gobel: Guitar Sean Malone: Stick, Keys, Guitar Paul Masvidal: Guitar Sean Reinert: Drums Paul solo’s: Solo 1 - 0:23 - 0:57 Solo 2 - 3:11 - 3:47 Solo 3 - 4:15 - 4:52 Pic (paul) Darrin Noble *Remaster Jamie King An insightful comment from Kenneth Goodenough, which he shared through his correspondence with Sean Malone: ASW is a great track, and a good showcase of Sean’s usage of motifs ((music). The melodies that you hear (in the original!) at around 1:04, 2:18, 3:55, and 6:02 are really just variations on the same theme. First time you hear it, it is an introduction, next time it is varied on by interspersing the motif with more freeform soloing. Third time the texture of the melody is changed to a clean guitar, ending with a very sparse version of the motif at the end. Also, the song is in 7/4 throughout. This playing around with a musical motifs is one of the clearest indicators of Sean’s love for the tradition of classical music, IMHO. Here’s some further info on ASW that Sean wrote, a long long time ago... ”A Shaman’s Whisper”, in its original form, came from jamming that Sean, Glenn, Jason, and I did back in the days when we were rehearsing as a group that would one day have a vocalist. There was a bridge section in Whisper that became an entirely new song: Code/Anticode on the first Gordian Knot CD. Originally, the groove was just the dotted pulse that you hear in the first three statements of guitar and Stick. Glenn made this more interesting buy adding the tag at the end of the fourth statement. Since Code/Anticode was growing in leaps and bounds, ASW was put on the backburner. It was brought back out for Emergent, where Jason resurrected some of his original parts, giving the song new life. My original title was ”Whispers at Gesthemane”, and while I thought it captured the sentiment I was after, it still had too direct a reference. Song titles, for me, always reflect a direct experience, but I try to step back and express it in what could be considered a shared experience - something we all have gone through in one form or another. Gear-wise, the recording consists of drum tracks recorded at Morrisound, Bill’s slit drum recorded in London, Stick andguitar recorded at my studio as well as Jason’s. Jason used his trusty Steinberger and while our first pass was through a Fender Twin, we layered with a POD. My Stick bass went through an Ampeg tube pre-amp. Paul recorded his parts in LA, and in fact, the first solo (which is a Stick solo) was added rather late. There is a version with a solo by Paul in that spot that I hope will see the light of day in the form of a re-mixed and re-mastered CD. I think it has some of Sean’s best drumming - I’m hard-pressed to think of someone who is as expressive as Sean is with the hi-hats.” Couldn’t agree more with that last statement---just listen to the segment starting at around 5:00! #gordianknot #seanmalone 📸 @darrinnoble Mastering @machinejk76 Motif (music) - Wikipedia Motif (music) - Wikipedia