Jack West / Strauss,Walter- Guitars On Life (Gate) (Vinyl)
Guitars On Life solves a nagging mystery about the fate of a musician who stood out as a singularly spectacular bloom even in the verdant creative fields of the San Francisco Bay Area at the turn of the century. After more than two decades of recording silence and about a dozen years away from the bandstand, Jack West is back, still immediately recognizable as a guitarist and composer but miles from the last stop on his ongoing musical journey. There’s poetic symmetry in discovering that his detour from life as a performing musician involved fruitful work devising innovative solar technologies, as he had similarly distinguished himself as an inveterately inventive musician.
When we last heard from West he’d carved out a vibrant niche as a guitarist with a percussive attack and lustrous group sound. Wielding a custom-builteight-string acoustic guitar with uncommon rhythmic dexterity, he released six albums featuring his original tunes, mostly recording with his band Curvature (though he also played mesmerizing solo recitals). West’s knack for crafting glistening, minutely detailed soundscapes full of surprising twists and oddly inviting textures prompted NPR to describe his work as “a whole new sub-genre of jazz.”
Drawn back to performing in recent years, West saw guitarist Walter Strauss at Berkeley’s Freight & Salvage in 2022 and suspected he’d found a kindredspirit. Intrigued by Strauss’s unusual approach to guitar, West “wondered what a musical conversation might sound like between two guitarists who had developed such uniquely different ways of playing the instrument.” An invitation to play together led to them writing the tune ‘More Guitar,’ the bravura opening track that launches Guitars On Life. Several months later they spent a week in Florida together writing intensively, resulting in most of the material for this consistently thrilling project.
UPC > 616444103728
Format > New Vinyl
Label > Ota Records
Shop online at Darkside Records.
Follow us on Instagram.
Genres:
Jack West / Strauss,Walter- Guitars On Life (Gate) (Vinyl)
- Unit price
- per
Release Date: 01.23.2026
🩷 Open My Records To Avoid Seam Splitting
In order to ship your records to you in the safest way possible, and to avoid seam splits, we recommend removing the record from the jacket when shipping. That said, we will never open sealed records and do this without your permission. If you would like your records shipped to you this way, please add Open My Records to your cart.
We will place your jacket and record inside a FREE protective poly with all shrink and hype stickers intact.
> Due to the current limited nature of music titles, ALL CD & Vinyl purchases are limited to FOUR copies per customer, per item. If you place multiple orders for multiples of the same title, your subsequent orders will be canceled.
Guitars On Life solves a nagging mystery about the fate of a musician who stood out as a singularly spectacular bloom even in the verdant creative fields of the San Francisco Bay Area at the turn of the century. After more than two decades of recording silence and about a dozen years away from the bandstand, Jack West is back, still immediately recognizable as a guitarist and composer but miles from the last stop on his ongoing musical journey. There’s poetic symmetry in discovering that his detour from life as a performing musician involved fruitful work devising innovative solar technologies, as he had similarly distinguished himself as an inveterately inventive musician.
When we last heard from West he’d carved out a vibrant niche as a guitarist with a percussive attack and lustrous group sound. Wielding a custom-builteight-string acoustic guitar with uncommon rhythmic dexterity, he released six albums featuring his original tunes, mostly recording with his band Curvature (though he also played mesmerizing solo recitals). West’s knack for crafting glistening, minutely detailed soundscapes full of surprising twists and oddly inviting textures prompted NPR to describe his work as “a whole new sub-genre of jazz.”
Drawn back to performing in recent years, West saw guitarist Walter Strauss at Berkeley’s Freight & Salvage in 2022 and suspected he’d found a kindredspirit. Intrigued by Strauss’s unusual approach to guitar, West “wondered what a musical conversation might sound like between two guitarists who had developed such uniquely different ways of playing the instrument.” An invitation to play together led to them writing the tune ‘More Guitar,’ the bravura opening track that launches Guitars On Life. Several months later they spent a week in Florida together writing intensively, resulting in most of the material for this consistently thrilling project.
UPC > 616444103728
Format > New Vinyl
Label > Ota Records
Shop online at Darkside Records.
Follow us on Instagram.
Genres: