James Beaudreau: Java St. Bagatelles (WBR 01)

Solo guitar album released in 2006. Twenty-four lo-fi recordings of (mostly) acoustic guitar improvisations.

…Guitarist James Beaudreau, playing both improvised and composed pieces and using editing as a way of making one appear to be the other, or else not, has made an impressive debut with this effectively recorded collection…   Noise effects personal to the instrument—knocking, the previously mentioned squeaks—are enhanced in either mix to the point where firecrackers seem to be going off. It could be a barrage in praise of Beaudreau, since picking like this is always welcome.

— Eugene Chadbourne at All Music

These 24 mini-improvs were brewed up in the kitchen of Beaudreau's Brooklyn home, and the domestic ambiance is part of the charm, as the guitarist's musing Nick Drake-meets-Derek Bailey improvisations are momentarily upstaged by a passing plane or a noisy bird, or receive incidental percussion from the house's other residents (including the cat!) …The glorious retro-minimalist mini-LP design, too, is irresistible, making the album look like a previously unknown 1960s folk album.

—Nate Dorward at Paris Transatlantic

…These improvisations are played in an idiosyncratic style, incorporating terse, epigrammatic phrases—which can't help but evoke the spectre of Derek Bailey—and more lyrical folk stylings. Like Hans Reichel's pieces, they pivot in unusual places, so that "Hare", for instance, takes on a structural slipperiness. …[Java St. Bagatelles] recalls some of Captain Beefheart's guitar pieces, which were transcribed from tapes of his precocious beginner's piano—although Beaudreau's instrumental chops are far more advanced.

—Mike Barnes in WIRE magazine No. 270 (Aug 06)