Born in Bhutan and living in Asheville, North Carolina, since 2000, Tashi Dorji crafts a vision and a style on the guitar which, rather than emerging from a supposed vacuum, draws on lessons and stories from the vast expanse of time and the instrument’s history, twisting them into something uniquely his own: from an adolescence fuelled by the energy of punk and metal, before opening up to free jazz, more or less academic experimentalism and free improvisation, as if glimpsing a distant and (potentially) inexhaustible horizon of inspirations that intertwine and dissipate within his own music. Appearing rather out of the blue back in 2009 with a series of acoustic improvisations recorded on cassette, Dorji immediately left his authorial mark through a series of guitar explorations blessed by the ghost of Derek Bailey, where freedom unveiled a malleable melodic core, shaped by the melancholy of the blues, by the nuances of fingerpicking, anomalous scales and by silence. Textures born of ingenuity and a sensitivity for blending fierce intensity with graceful gestures, which have alternated between electric and acoustic guitar throughout a vast discography, brimming with collaborations with artists as diverse as Susie Ibarra, Shane Parish, Aaron Turner and Alex Zhang Hungtai; a mere glimpse of the intricate paths through which he has forged his identity, in a unifying spirit and, in the process, always with generosity. As a solo artist, he frequently explores these instincts, ranging from more homespun improvisations and live recordings to more carefully crafted albums for Drag City, such as the recent low clouds hang, this land is on fire. Rooted in an ever-politicised vision of resistance, The follow-up to the tactile ferocity that emanated from the ‘torch songs’ of Restless retreats into a language brimming with lyricism and space, with melancholic notes and chords that reverberate in the silence, in an aura reminiscent of Loren Connors’s poetics but one that embodies Dorji’s own dedication and vision.
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