LA composer and guitarist Brady Cohan announces his debut solo work for guitar and electronics, the lush, gentle Studies, Vol. 1 EP. Recorded around his film score work, Studies, Vol. 1 represents a hugely accomplished musician-for-hire expressing his own immense creativity.
As a musician, Brady Cohan inhabits multiple creative worlds. He is a key part of the vital Downtown LA jazz scene that features musicians such as Sam Gendel, Sam Wilkes (who, indeed, features on Studies, Vol. 1) and Josiah Steinbrick. As a sought-after Hollywood film composer and assistant composer, his credits include Good Girls and Crashing. His session guitar playing has seen him tour alongside such giants as Stewart Copeland, Queen Latifah, Stanley Clarke, Natalie Cole and countless more. His debut solo work, Studies, Vol. 1, distills these contrasting musical influences and backgrounds into a uniquely eloquent instrumental collection, subtly energising and brimming with life. A record, he writes, that “connects the way I play the guitar with the kind of music I want to write.”
LA film composer and guitarist Brady Cohan offers the second edition of his fascinating, ongoing series for solo guitar and electronics with the dark sparsity of Studies, Vol. 2.
Brady describes Studies, Vol. 2 as “a study in gestures”. Thematically, it acts as a continuation of the same musical landscapes ventured by December 2020’s first Studies volume - the same skilled, agile handling of guitar and electronics; the same radical chill of downtown LA’s vital jazz scene; the same distillation of musical mastery honed by years of composing filmscore. However, this new edition minimises the lush, slow-mo Malibu balm of the previous iteration in favour of a rarefied and subtle intensity. Where guest musician Sam Wilkes’ bassline in Volume 1 quietly grooves, Sam Gendel’s treated saxophone in Volume 2’s “Begin Again” smears and smudges an already-blurred canvas.
“This record was an act of self-preservation,” Brady tells us. “A way for me to channel the negativity into something positive.”
LA film composer and guitarist Brady Cohan offers the final edition of his fascinating, ongoing series for solo guitar and electronics with the dark sparsity of Studies, Vol. 3.
Studies, Vol. 3 takes a neat step along from the themes and styles of its earlier cousins. Where Vol. 1 leant into lush Malibu balm and Sam Wilkes’ slo-mo grooves, and Vol. 2 darkens into a Lynchian noir featuring Sam Gendel’s blurry treated saxophone, Vol. 3 takes us to a new destination still. Its deconstructed, cubist guitar journeys weave similar patterns to avant-guitar’s deftest practitioners such as Loren Connors, Fennesz, Jim O’Rourke or Tashi Dorji. And across all three volumes of Cohan’s Studies is the same skilled, agile handling of guitar and electronics; the same radical chill of downtown LA’s vital jazz scene; the same distillation of musical mastery honed by years of composing filmscore. Studies Vol. 3 tidily sews up the set while contributing a whole new world of strange sonics itself.