GWENIFER RAYMOND Strange Lights Over Garth Mountain TOMPKINSSQUARE

“AMERICAN PRIMITIVE” is a term that flatters to deceive. On the surface it describes a school of guitar playing, long on feeling but short on gloss. Delving deeper it suggests perhaps a degree of false modesty; a playful subterfuge that upends expectation. It might occasionally be unpolished, but it’s certainly not without ambition.

For more than 50 years the form – identified by the guitarist John Fahey – has brought us deeply committed guitar instrumentals. As played by Fahey and others in generations since, they have broached the cruelty of the bad times, sung praise to God at Christmas, dignified a cement factory and ridden the railroads. Under the cloak of unsophistication, American primitive has tackled philosophical questions, fables, classical themes and avant-garde composition. These explorations