condition (record/cover):  NM / VG (ring wear and spine split)

By 1982 Phil Manzanera had been the guitarist of Roxy Music for a decade and had recorded with 801, Quiet Sun, Brian Eno, John Cale, John Wetton and a long list of other British art-rockers. Primitive Guitars (1982) is his most personal solo statement: an entirely instrumental album of layered electric and acoustic guitar pieces, with no other musicians and almost no other instruments, organised as an autobiographical sequence loosely following his Colombian and British upbringing.

The album is structured as ten short interconnected movements, each piece flowing into the next. "Caracas" opens the record with a single acoustic guitar that gives way to layered electrics. "The Caves Of Paradise" pulls a Latin-American rhythm pattern through delay loops. "Bogota" and "Modelo" lean into the Quiet Sun-derived angular fusion that Manzanera had developed at the start of the 1970s. "Africa" and "Caribbean Sunset" sit closer to the Eno-derived ambient tradition (the influence of having played on Here Come The Warm Jets and Another Green World is audible). "Frontera" and "El Sol" close the record on more meditative material.

The original vintage Editions EG pressing on 2311 106, with the house design and printed inner. Primitive Guitars sits at the most personal end of Manzanera's catalog, alongside his 801 Live record and Diamond Head. A quiet, deeply consistent guitarist's record, and one of the most overlooked entries in the EG instrumental catalog.