The art that I find most resonant often presents variation, decomposition, or struggle within an identified system or set of rules. So it is with my favorite record of the year, Montreal musician Mat Ball’s Amplified Guitar. Playing an instrument he built himself, Ball recorded each track in a single take. There are no overdubs or adornments—each piece is a dance between Ball’s mournful, blues-inflected playing and the amplifier that is projecting (and refracting) each note. As the album’s short trailer video makes clear, the dance between Ball and his amplifier is literal: at one point, he presses the head of the guitar into the amplifier; at another, he upends the instrument and drags its head… More