Cam Butler: Spirits Flying Home
Cam Butler

Multiple recordings are available featuring Melbourne guitarist Cam Butler with ensembles of varying sizes—in addition to the eleven solo instrumental albums he's issued, Butler's also contributed to other artists' projects—but there's something undeniably special about one featuring him alone. In that context, his command of the instrument and associated gear is especially apparent, especially when it's not put to self-indulgent or egoistic ends but instead used to realize the artistic expression for a given piece. It also allows his singular tone to be heard clearly and for the listener to better appreciate the textures he coaxes from his Gibson Les Paul.

Being an album of unaccompanied pieces, Spirits Flying Home is naturally intimate and exposing, and it hardly surprises that Butler's christened it his most personal album to date. Reflecting its choice of title, the set finds him memorializing departed friends and colleagues and meditating on mortality and loss. It's not overwrought, but it is deeply felt, even when the homages are poised and dignified. Butler uses distortion, reverb, and live looping to amplify the emotional dimension of each setting and generate layered lattices of sound. No over-the-top displays arise; in their place are tastefully constructed and authentic expressions that register powerfully.

However much the seven pieces, recorded at Bulter's St Kilda home during 2024, might suggest spontaneous creation, their careful unfolding suggests them to be compositions consciously conceived and structured. The title track establishes the album's seductive template with a softly smouldering reverie that Butler intensifies with raw fuzz-tone and judiciously applied tremolo and twang. A strummed backdrop provides both animation and stability for a biting lead solo he layers on top (something he also does during “Old as Earth” and “Came From the Sky”). A waltz feel imbues the subsequent “New Visions” with an engaging lilt that Butler builds on with a beautiful chord progression, glissando-like flourishes, and slow-burning fuzz; a passage even emerges towards the end where one could mistake his playing for Hergest Ridge-era Mike Oldfield (a good thing). Testifying to the thoughtful compositional construction in play, “New Visions” progresses through about four to five sections, each one leading fluidly into the next. More an atmospheric interlude than full-fledged composition, “Ancient Visions” unfolds as a dense, slowly awakening dronescape; “Black as Space” is similar but adds a foreboding quality to the mix. “Night Lands” engages for a stark, unadorned presentation that enables the listener to fully savour his phrasing, pacing, and handling of texture.

June 2025