By Scott McLennan

Roger Clark Miller’s latest solo electric guitar ensemble album showcases him at his best, blending avant-garde experimentation with familiar guitar rock textures.

Curiosity for Solo Electric Guitar Ensemble, Roger Clark Miller (Cuneiform Records)

On Curiosity for Solo Electric Guitar Ensemble, Roger Clark Miller comes armed with a modified Stratocaster, three altered lap steel guitars, a looping machine, and effects pedals. And with this assemblage he once again creates richly layered music that he claims is inspired by his dreams, just as he did on the beguiling 2022 album Eight Dream Interpretations for Solo Electric Guitar Ensemble. (Arts Fuse review)

On that initial dream-based outing, Miller appeared to be giving musical voice and shape to sleep-state brain work, a oneiric realm that can only be emotionally experienced, at least directly, by the dreamer. On the new album, Miller’s music feels more like it is reaching out and touching the contours of an existing structure, as if dreams are not something individually created, but rather a collective world that others can enter.

This subtle shift in meaning is hinted at from the outset by the way Miller titles his compositions. Rather than simply giving each selection a number, based on the order in which it was initially composed, as he did on his last album, Miller gives the compositions on Curiosity for Solo Electric Guitar Ensemble names — suggesting an assertion of permanence

This suggests that the music here follows a shared form rather than emerging from a primordial improvised soup. The last composition is based not on dreams (which Miller says he documents in a journal), but on photographs taken by the rover dubbed “Curiosity”, which is currently cruising around on Mars.

Plunging into the music itself, Miller is in top form, crafting wild sounding pieces that blend avant-garde experimentation with familiar textures of guitar rock.

Miller’s current project flows naturally from a splendid body of boundary-pushing work that includes music by the legendary post-punk outfit Mission of Burma and the more innovative efforts of Birdsongs of the Mesozoic and the Alloy Orchestra. Miller sounds even more confident now as he moves forward with his one-man-with-many-guitars approach than he did with Eight Dream interpretations.

Roger Clark Miller in solo action. Photo: Jack Fraser alterations, Joanne Kaliontzis

Curiosity opens with “Russian Spy Canisters,” which kicks off by evoking a machine being turned on and warming up. A thick fuzzy tone unspools as small eruptions pop along the groove. More tones, some sounding like alarms, arrive about a minute into the piece. Eventually, all the layers become too intermingled to separate: the tune eventually dissolves into a groovy psychedelic riff that breaks apart, becoming a ping-ponging chase between the left and right audio channels. By the end of the number, Miller has become the creator as concentrator: squeezing and wrestling all the disparate notes, tones, and percussive rhythms into a tight, thin strand.

“I KNOW YOU” is hardly mellow, but its musical tension is much more spacious than “Russian Spy Canisters”. Miller lets more relaxed vacancies creep into this song, deftly accentuating the rhythmic qualities of his guitar rig. This is probably the “tightest” track on the album, but still traffics heavily in abstract ideas . It is as if Miller assembles pieces from multiple puzzles to craft a unique surreal image.

The 8-plus minute “Post-Godzilla Interrogation Dinner” is the recording’s most sprawling (though not longest) track. Miller demonstrates patience and precision, holding down a solid core that need to withstand the arrival of wildly contrasting tones that collide and fling apart. The song is an illustration of just how out there and daring an improvisation, driven by the unconscious, can be.

“Aztec War Club” is the last of the dream-based numbers and the album’s most physical song. Miller continually jabs angular guitar figures against a burbling backdrop. This version of musical shadow boxing eventually leads Miller to furiously launch a barrage of dart-like notes. As chaotic as the tune comes to be, there remains a laser focus on the overall impression the music is making, even as it creates a wild, imaginative splatter of sound.

“Curiosity on Mars” closes Curiosity for Solo Electric Guitar Ensemble. Miller composed the song’s five sections by examining photographs of rocks and terrain on Mars. He fills more than 13 minutes with interludes of chiming wonder (at one point you swear there’s a saloon piano wailing away — are there saloons on Mars?) drawing on all the guitars, gadgets, and gizmos at his disposal to articulate (in sound) a sense of wonder and inquiry. It’s an especially welcome exercise in innocent appreciation, given that so many today are consumed by aspirations of conquest.

Note: Roger Clark Miller is bringing his solo electric guitar ensemble to The Lilypad in Cambridge on May 17.

Scott McLennan covered music for the Worcester Telegram & Gazette from 1993 to 2008. He then contributed music reviews and features to The Boston Globe, Providence Journal, Portland Press Herald, and WGBH, as well as to The Arts Fuse. He also operated the NE Metal blog to provide in-depth coverage of the region’s heavy metal scene.