He may not have known it before, but Toronto-born, New York-based guitarist Matthew Stevens, prized for his forceful, distinctive electric sound on Esperanza Spalding’s groundbreaking Emily’s D+Evolution, Exposure and the GRAMMY-winning 12 Little Spells, was an ideal candidate to make an album fully devoted to solo acoustic guitar: the intimate, unadorned, straightforwardly titled Pittsburgh.

Stevens’ previous two outings, Woodwork (2015) and Preverbal (2017), made use of steel-string acoustic as a vibrant textural contrast, notably on “Brothers” and “Our Reunion” (featuring Spalding as guest and co-composer). Still, a solo acoustic album seemed to Stevens like a “maybe someday” prospect, if that. Then came the convergence of two major events — the COVID-19 pandemic and a fractured elbow

PERSONNEL:

• Matthew Stevens - guitar

Recorded in Pittsburgh PA, January 28 and March 4, 2021

TRACKS:

• 01 Ambler
• 02 Purpose of a Machine
• 03 Buckets
• 04 Can Am
• 05 Foreign Ghosts
• 06 Northern Touch
• 07 Cocoon
• 08 Ending Is Beginning
• 09 Blue Blues
• 10 Broke
• 11 Miserere