Unsung by Paul Abbott

Unsung was my first album as a solo instrumental acoustic guitarist, originally released June 20, 1998. It’s a collection of 12 songs (“compositions”) that I began writing in college and finished in my late 20s.

This album captured my composing and performing ability fairly accurately, as I listen back to it now (during re-mastering). It's also a snapshot of modern instrumental acoustic guitar post-Windham Hill and pre-CandyRat/ Fretmonkey/YouTube.

During re-mastering, I found a review of Unsung on a finger-style guitar website (alongside reviews for albums by Don Ross, Kaki King, Pierre Bensusan, Adrian Legg, Peter Huttlinger, and Vicki Genfan) that I'd never seen before. The reviewer wrote, "Paul Abbott is a top acoustic guitarist with excellent techniques and very superb melodies. This album has all that good music needs, music with good timing and music which really moves you."

I also recall that a few of the songs from Unsung were played on San Diego's NPR affiliate (KPBS), as bumper music, when the album was released.

Technical Notes:

I was lucky to have my friend Steve Denyes record/engineer the album in his home studio. At the time I’d just purchased a Roland VS-880 and was pretty jazzed to be recording with some of Steve’s nice mics/preamps on a hard disk recorder (not an ADAT). This was exciting stuff in the 1990s! In re-mastering, I realized what a good job Steve did with gain staging and levels on some really dynamic material.

Speaking of re-mastering: the original mixes were first de-noised in iZotope RX and then everything was given the once-over with ZenMastering's all-analog mastering console. EQ was kept to a minimum in re-mastering, as I wanted to preserve the sound of what I captured and mixed in 1998.

Most of the songs were performed on a Taylor 510, and recorded with two mics and a magnetic pickup blended in. At the time I also had a Guild OM-style (the guitar in the inside album sleeve). I used the Guild on Amidst the Ruin and Milena (iirc).

All the songs were recorded live with no overdubs, splices, or punch-ins except for the bass track on A Human Heart, which was overdubbed after the guitar part was recorded.

I write, record, and perform music that takes advantage of the different sonic and textural possibilities of the steel-string acoustic guitar.

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