Michael Hedges - Aerial Boundaries

It's been called the album that opened "a new chapter on steel-string guitar playing," and it's unquestionably one of the most groundbreaking albums in acoustic guitar history. Though Hedges had released the excellent Breakfast in the Field on Windham Hill in 1981, the Grammy-nominated Boundaries came as an unexpected revelation in 1985. On stirring, complex compositions like "Rickover's Dream," "Spare Change," and a deft instrumental reading of Neil Young's "After the Gold Rush," Hedges unleashed a stunning new vocabulary of finger-tapping, hammering, and harmonic slaps--processed with electronics and reverb--that still resounds today in the playing of artists from Ani Di Franco to Preston Reed. Steeped both in classical harmony and the fingerstyle guitar tradition of Leo Kottke, Martin Carthy, and John Renbourn, Boundaries remains the late composer-guitarist's seminal work, and its innovations in technique, tuning, tone, and intensity remain key texts in modern acoustic circles. --James Rotondi Amazon.com essential recording

Glad to come back to this after many years

Michael Hedges was a truly extraordinary player. He also personified New Age-y-ness in a good, real, and human way. If you put aside the stereotype, he was really working to live a good life in the way that he wanted to. I saw him play several times in Nashville and then in California, in the early 1990s. When he came to Stanford and played with Michael Manring, it was one of the best concerts of my life. He was in a great mood, energized, and absolutely blew the crowd away. Then there were quieter moments; for example he recited the Jabberwocky whilst walking, hunched down, with his elbows wrapped behind his knees and his hands also on the floor (playing a borogove?--see the cover of Road to Return). His covers, like Drive Me Crazy by Fine Young Cannibals, or Lucky Star by Madonna started out like a bit of tongue in cheek, but they became rocking, gleeful, pyrotechnic liberation.

Aerial Boundaries is wonderful. Other albums are definitely worthwhile, or if you want to get a couple of mp3's where he's doing great guitar, try Silent Anticipations (off of Breakfast in the Field or Live on the Double Planet) or The Rootwitch (off Taproot), or Jitterboogie (off Oracle, and not avail. as mp3 on Amazon I think).

I was really bummed when Michael Hedges died in a car wreck, tumbling alone off of California's coastal Highway 1. I think I had this album on CD along time ago, or cassette, but it's lost. I'm finally coming back to buy it again today. July 22, 2008

The Best!!

Micheal Hedges lived to please his listeners with the best possible music that he could get from a guitar!! July 9, 2007

Aerial Boundaries

Great CD if you enjoy acoustic guitar. Sophiscated, romantic,ethereal, and abstract all rolled into a ball. Good stuff! July 9, 2007

For guitarists, really, and even then...

Moments of brilliance, (yes, even genius, on this album), but over all it's a disjointed effort. You will listen to this, if you're a guitar player, and be inspired; but you'll find that inspiration fully realized in Kaki King and Don Ross, not on this CD. To be fair to Hedges, he died too early to do that for himself, but I still doubt he would have achieved the perfection of Everybody Loves You or Passion Session. He was just one of those guys who is hell bent on pushing that envelope, and it was kind of fitting he drove off a cliff one night. June 17, 2007

Aerial Boundaries -- An Acoustic Masterpiece

Rarely do I find an acoustic artist so gifted as to make a guitar do what it supposed to do: convey imagery without lyrical content, or imply a feeling found nowhere else. This is exactly what Michael Hedges has done in "Aerial Boundaries." Mr. Hedges uses his guitar in what was, to my recollection, the first use of percussive slap harmonic technique I have ever heard. There are more recent artists who currently employ this technique, but I believe Mr. Hedges was the first to do so.

Mr. Hedges was a unique talent whose life was cut short too early in his career, but for the few recordings that Mr. Hedges produced, this is his most recognizable and more debatably, his best. I cannot personally think of another acoustic recording of any other artist that comes close to what Mr. Hedges has accomplished.

I will not described individual songs, as there are some better than others, but the recording "Aerial Boundaries" is best taken by listening to it in its entirety. This is the genius of Michael Hedges; revel in it, be absorbed by it and take it to heart. It is a learning tool for any acoustic guitarist who seeks to find originality, and a marvel to any non-musician who asks himself "How did Mr. Hedges coax the sounds out of his guitar the way he did?"

Prepare to be amazed, delighted, and bewildered by the unique talent known as Michael Hedges in "Aerial Boundaries." January 3, 2007

More reviews at Amazon.com ...