After releasing (by my count) 10 solo releases in 2010, Emeralds’ guitarist Mark McGuire has certainly slowed down — Get Lost is his only new solo release this year. Regardless, McGuire has carved himself a niche: his layered loops ’n’ effects approach to guitar is like a denser, more involved version of Ash Ra Temple guitarist Manuel Göttsching’s ambient work in the mid-’70s, or like a neo-kosmische Durutti Column record — that is to say, layered and evocative guitar music that doesn’t always sound like guitar music.
The electronic blips of Get Lost’s title track give way to a massive guitar drone and triumphant acoustic jangle, though the descending melody of “Alma” seems to be the album’s most memorable point — and not just because it’s the first time McGuire has used vocals, which he manages to pull off neatly. The sidelong ambient closer “Firefly Constellations” is one of McGuire’s less interesting long pieces. It’s not “good” or “bad” so much as it’s just there, taking up half of the album. That said, the five tracks preceding it are fantastic, so consider Get Lost a solid EP’s worth of tripped-out lushness to swim around in.
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