Joe Morris, Elliott Sharp

Producer's notes:

Pairing my two favorite guitarists, Joe Morris and Elliott Sharp, succeeded—pardon the cliché—beyond my wildest dreams. Their contrasts and their commonalities came together in the studio in ways I’d never even imagined. The old ESP slogan “You never heard such sounds in your life” seemed as apt as it had ever been. Engineer Jim Clouse and I could barely believe what we were hearing, or even seeing—there were wave forms on the monitor we’d never witnessed before: instead of the usual spiky soundwaves of peaks and valleys, there were squiggles that looked like alien scripts imagined for a science-fiction movie!

Each track on Realism is kind of like three tracks: acoustic, effects, and the combination. Thus, in a way, the players are dueting not only with each other but also with themselves. (Morris is on the left, Sharp is on the right.) There is intentionality but also openness to the unplanned. Sometimes this kind of music is called “abstract” because it’s not made up of just simple melodies, harmonies, and rhythmic beats (and this session reminded me that the guitar is inherently a percussive instrument, though of course great players have ways of sometimes making us forget that). Everything is... more
credits
released May 30, 2025

Joe Morris - guitars and effects
Elliott Sharp - guitars and electronics
Recorded and mastered by Jim Clouse, Park West Studios, Brooklyn, NY on July 17, 2023.
Mixed by Elliott Sharp and Jim Clouse at Park West Studios on August 1, 2023.
Produced by Steve Holtje for ESP-Disk’.
Front cover photo by Joe Morris.
Back cover photo by Elliott Sharp.
Session photos by Toto Alvarez.
Design and layout by Janene Higgins.