Stuart McCallum/Mike Walker - The Space Between

The Guardian 60

(Edition)

A renewal of a longstanding dialogue for Manchester’s guitar giants, the former Cinematic Orchestra sideman Stuart McCallum, and Salford’s bluesy world-class virtuoso Mike Walker – largely a lyrical conversation (with a little string-quartet help) savouring the contours of seductive themes by the participants, as well as by Bacharach, Beethoven and Debussy. Walker’s power to soar thrillingly out of a deceptively cool groove to rock-blues wails is soon evident, as he bursts from folk-guitar hints of the Ode to Joy and the pattering electronic pulse of the opener. Alfie is left respectfully unbent in a tender acoustic duet, the folk dance of Yewfield has a spaciously Pat Metheny-like country feel, and McCallum plays Debussy’s String Quartet in G minor not as a strings feature but a reharmonised and flawlessly crafted solo. The McCallum ballad As the Trees Waltz has its poignant theme creatively swept up by Walker, and the latter uncorks the set’s fiercest electric outburst on the rolling, Indian-inflected Sky Dancer. A treat of an album for guitaristas, maybe a little mellow for some jazzers.