Review

The title of Eric Arn’s latest album is guaranteed to trigger autocorrect reactions wherever French is spoken. The lack of an accent, the reversed capitalization and word order — word processing programs are probably muttering zut alors under their virtual breath. An idée fixe, in both English and French, is an obsessive idea; in psychological circles, it denotes a potentially mistaken notion that is impervious to correction.

So, just what is Arn’s hang-up? Since fixe Idee is instrumental, and the names of its tracks do not tip their hands to an obvious theme, one is left with the supposition that it has something to do with the album’s contents. The LP comprises seven solo acoustic guitar performances, but not all in the same style. This is not an American Primitive or free improv record, although elements of both methodologies and several others can be heard, sometimes within the same piece. “Bear, completely unraveled” lurches between galloping advance, scrabbling asides, and pile-ups containing bits of both like a sailor trying to stay on his feet as the deck heaves in heavy seas. On the other hand, “Impromptu pour le fantôme,” with its parade of contrasting segments whose succession suggests a narrative wreathed in mystery, is very much in the spirit of the Takoma School. And “Gutbucket” blows right past the blues implications of its name with a velocity, of not exactly a sound, that’s steeped in punk rock.

So, perhaps Arn’s unswerving obsession is that he has to deal mano-a-mano with the acoustic guitar? While fixe Idee is not his first crack at the format, Arn has waited a long time to get around to it. He first recorded in the 1980s, when he was a member of Crystalized Movements, and took his improvisational rock band, the Primordial Undermind, with him when he moved to Austria in 2005. With all that rocking out, he didn’t make a solo, mostly acoustic record until Higher Order (also on Carbon) in 2021. If this has become the thing he thinks he must do, well, it sure beats a lot of other fixed ideas going around these days.