Luke Gullickson Trio
Wilderness

Among the piñon and juniper scrublands of northern New Mexico is a 16,000-acre area known as the Sabinoso Wilderness. For years, this was the only federally designated wilderness with no public access points; the only legal way to experience the Sabinoso was as the guest of a local landowner. In the mid-2010s, the nonprofit Wilderness Land Trust intervened by purchasing an adjoining property, unlocking public access to the wilderness.

Luke Gullickson Trio's Wilderness offers a wander through the places the roads still don't go. "Braided Creek," the extended folk meditation that opens the album, nods to a book of the same title by Jim Harrison and Ted Kooser, who published their poetic correspondence as a collection of unsigned aphorisms. Gullickson’s “Braided Creek” lays out ground rules and invokes a wider space for listening. “Sabinoso” features spiraling lines and intense interplay between Gullickson's Rhodes piano, Donna Bacon's viola, and Lisa Donald's cello. The final, shortest piece, “Wilderness,” proceeds from a Rhodes improvisation to a charming melody that sits quietly in the canyon, happy, finally, to be allowed entrance.

All proceeds from sales of this album will be donated to the Wilderness Land Trust.

“Old friend, 
perhaps we work too hard 
at being remembered.” 
— Ted Kooser / Jim Harrison

The cover art is Untitled 8 (2013) by Laura Young.

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Format

digital

Release Date

15 sept 2017

Catalog #

2LR 010