7/10

With his latest collection 'GUITARWORKS II', John Beckmann (the restless mind behind The Mortal Prophets) strips everything back to essence. Sixteen brief instrumentals unfold like fragments of half-remembered dreams, each one carrying the faint outline of a place whose story resists full translation. There are no lyrics, no narrative scaffolding to lean on. Only the guitar itself, its voice stretched into sighs, murmurs, and dissolving tones that hover on the edge of vanishing.

Where many instrumental records aim for grandeur, Beckmann does the opposite. His pieces feel eroded, like relics dug from the ground, the amp buzz and tape imperfections left intact as if to remind us of the fragility of memory. Pieces such as 'Serpent Mound' curl into the air before fading like smoke. 'Chaco Canyon' drifts forward in slow arcs, the guitar less an instrument than a tuning fork pressed against the bones of history.

Though echoes of ambient pioneers loom in the distance, Beckmann resists mimicry. His work is not about vast cinematic sweep but about intimate excavation, like brushing dirt off ancient stone to reveal its faint etchings. Every track feels patient, reverent, and slightly unsettled, as if carrying the weight of centuries within a four-minute frame.

These are pieces meant for dusk listening here, when the world quiets and the air thickens with the sense of something just out of reach. If the original 'GUITARWORKS' cracked open a door, its sequel feels like stepping barefoot into a threshold space, where time collapses and only resonance remains.

Beckmann has made a record that guides as much as it haunts, creating music that points not toward the unmapped spaces where silence holds its own geography.