| Guitar Solos 3 | |
| Type: | studio |
| Artist: | various artists |
| Cover: | GuitarSolos3.jpg |
| Recorded: | 1976–1978 |
| Label: | Rift (US) |
| Producer: | Fred Frith |
Guitar Solos 3 is the third in a series of three albums of improvised guitar solos by various musicians, and was released in the United States by Rift Records in 1979. Fred Frith coordinated and produced the series, which began with his 1974 debut solo album, Guitar Solos.
The three Frith tracks on this album were later included on the 1991 CD reissue of Frith's, Guitar Solos.
In a review of Guitar Solos 3, and the previous album in this series, Guitar Solos 2, Tony Coulter wrote in Ear Magazine that "[t]raditional guitar playing is most definitely not the focus of these two LPs." He called these compilations by Frith "an indispensable introduction to the world of freely improvising guitarists." Coulter added that these albums emphasize extended technique and showcase these guitarists at their best.
Writing in Sonic Transports: New Frontiers in Our Music (1990), Nicole V. Gagné noted that Frith's three improvised pieces on the album have little in the way of recognizable guitar music. "Alienated Industrial Seagulls etc." sounds like "a motorcycle gang trashing the loading dock of a screen-door warehouse", and "Song of River Nights" "is delicate and transparent ... evoking the sounds of old timbers and ropes and water", but in neither is there anything resembling a guitar. Gagné said it is only in Frith's final track, "Should Old Arthur" – "a brief, lopsided lullaby played on one of the guitar strings with a violin bow" – that a guitar is evident.
Source: LP liner notes, Fred Frith discography, Discogs.
Source: LP liner notes, Fred Frith discography.
Source: LP liner notes, Fred Frith discography, Discogs.