London, 2024

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Dylan Kay is an English musician and guitarist based in Auckland. If much of his career has been focused on improvised music, particularly through jazz, it is the blues that Kay feels the closest too. This relationship has led him to focus on slide guitar. His latest project is (I Could) Watch You Forever, a small collection of intimate pieces for solo guitar. 

 

(I Could) Watch You Forever is indeed a small collection of precious music. Bookended by two covers; it opens up with a truly original version of “Blackbird” which announces the tone of the work. Both rough and soft, aggressive and tender and purely introspective. Here, Kay is unhidden, alone with the guitar; an instrument that he has mastered. “You Don’t Know What Love Is”, a well-known tune from the jazz repertoire is here taken apart; all unnecessary removed; and remains a minimalist piece, revealing the true sensitivity of the music, and its underlying romanticism. The four original pieces all share a similar intention of contemplation. Three of them go particularly well together; “The Sea”, “Watch You Forever” and “For Now”. With them, Kay demonstrates that words are not necessary to express singular emotions, and through the solo guitar, he reaches at both the heart and the mind. The music is sparse, and well-balanced, and each moment of improvisation shows the fragility of the composer’s intentions, as well as exciting musical choices for the performer’s. “Big B” evolves similarly, however it explores more adventurous sonic lands. Slide guitar has the particularity of being edgy; the nature of the technique itself allows for the musician to control the intention and balance it from the most delicate weeping to the almost violent scream of the instrument. If it is traditionally anchored in blues, here Kay steers it away from cliches to find his own world. 

 

In this latest project, (I Could) Watch You Forever, Dylan Kay proves that there is much more to slide guitar than blues, and in fact the music that emerges from this EP will attract much more than the blues or the jazz aficionados, but lovers of all forms of improvised music will find pleasure and interest. It is a wonderful collection of personal works, which balance lyricism with musical explorations – and most importantly, beautiful music.