When you’re first and foremost a guitarist, it’s not a bad thing to have Eric Clapton as an admirer. Clapton recently told Rolling Stone that “Blake Mills is the last guitarist I heard that I thought was phenomenal.” So who is Blake Mills? Even if you haven’t heard of him, it’s a good guess you’ve heard or seen him play. This is a guy who has played with Cass McCombs, Neil Diamond, Haim, Julian Casablancas, Sky Ferreira, Beck, Conor Oberst and most notably as a long-time collaborator/touring-partner of Fiona Apple. The list gets even longer when you add his skills as a producer to his roster. That The Fader called him the “Earth’s most slept-on songwriter” isn’t a huge hyperbole, it’s sound frustration over Mills lack of exposure outside tastemakers market.
“If I’m Unworthy”, a track Mills played live for a few years now, shows his inventive guitar play by using tremolo like lesser gifted artists would try to use an arpeggiated synthesizer. And it only gets better as Mills gearshifts between amplified guitar riffs and stripped moments of sheer brilliance. It pleases me to finally hear an artist with such a palpable technique, and Mills exemplfies to zillions of youngsters who just yesterday picked up a guitar that it takes about 10.000 hours before you can play the living shit out of an instrument.
Mills follow-up to 2010’s Break Mirrors is titled Heigh Ho and is expected September 16 via Verve/Record Collection.
