Walter Lupi - Shorts

”Shorts” is an acoustic guitar album of unbelievable clarity and melodic power. Walter Lupi has long assimilated the music of his role models and woven it into a personal style revealing elements of folk music, jazz and ”West Coast finger style”. What is remarkable is his use of ”groove techniques” such as tapping and percussion, which he performs on the body of his Larrivée guitar. The technical crux of this style is the cut called ”Jazzy”, in which Lupi conjures an entire ensemble. The groove of ”Sunset Ride” would even suffice as a point of honor for a good percussionist. By the same token, these are by no means technical salon pieces. Walter Lupi integrates this manner of playing seamlessly and with great musicality in his poetic acoustic guitar performance, which thereby becomes extremely multi-faceted and ”multidimensional”. A good example of how what one might have thought was a well-known piece achieves new sheen in the sonorous world of Walter Lupi is his version of ”A Whiter Shade Of Pale” in the rare E–A–E–F#–B–E tuning.