Acoustic Shards

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Acoustic Shards is Buckethead's second special release. It consists of acoustic recordings culled from tapes that were reportedly recorded on July 2, 1991 when Buckethead was 22 years of age. This album is considered more of a special release rather than his latest effort.

The album was released on May 31, 2007 by Jas Obrecht, through his label Avabella, who also released the DVDs Young Buckethead Vol. 1 and Young Buckethead Vol. 2.

According to Jas Obrecht:

Imagine, if you will, that Buckethead walked into a quiet living room, picked up an acoustic guitar, and began improvising one amazing composition after the next -- that's what happened when we recorded Acoustic Shards back in 1991. (It was taped a couple of weeks after the final Deli Creeps concert on the Young Buckethead DVDs, but is quite different musically.) It is a single-CD, 52:30 minutes in length, 15 tracks. Included are very early versions of "For Mom" and "Who Me?" as well as a lot of stuff you've never heard before. The playing is spectacular -- some of it sounds like Django Reinhardt meets Ornette Coleman meets young EVH meets... well, that which is uniquely and lovably Buckethead. Some passages are so advanced you'd swear it's two guitarists -- but it was all recorded in real time and without overdubs -- while other parts are just melodically beautiful beyond words. So far, everyone who's heard it has said it's the kind of music that resonates in you long after the stereo's been turned off.

"For Mom" was first released officially on the album Colma (1998) and "Who Me?" followed on Monsters and Robots (1999).

Track listing

No.	Title	Length
1.	"For Mom" (Early Version)	2:39
2.	"Who Me?" (Early Version)	3:02
3.	"Little Gracie"	2:11
4.	"Ed's Rhapsody / Midnight Dance / Jars"	2:55
5.	"Ganryu Island / Sasaki's Gone"	2:14
6.	"Ghosts Upstairs"	2:39
7.	"Spirals"	3:48
8.	"Cubes, Chunks & Crumbles"	3:27
9.	"Thugs"	7:38
10.	"Dinging / Ah-Ji-Jee"	2:38
11.	"Johnny"	2:17
12.	"Stay Out of the Shed"	3:00
13.	"Serape"	1:46
14.	"Longing"	10:33
15.	"Box Elders"	1:14
Total length:		52:01

Trivia

• On the first pressings of Acoustic Shards, tracks 2 and 3 are reversed in the track listing, and Sasaki's Gone was misspelled as Saskia's Gone. These errors were corrected on future pressings of the album.
• At around 0:38 in Little Gracie, the word "Oops..." can be heard, as well as other indistinct talking from the track timing of 0:33 to 0:40.
• The guitar riff that occurs at 4:58–5:05 in Thugs, is common to that of the 2:15–2:33 riff from Post Office Buddy, thus the beginnings of the riff started in this original recording.
• At approximately 1:00 in Johnny, a riff similar to that of the Pieces' song Danyel (from the album I Need 5 Minutes Alone) can be heard.
• At approximately 0:33 in Box Elders a riff similar to that of the Deli Creeps' song "Time" (from the album Dawn of the Deli Creeps) can be heard.

Credits

• Buckethead – Acoustic guitar.

External links

• Avabella's official Young Buckethead site