r e v i e w s Hush - AMG All-Media-Guide AMG Expert Review AMG Rating **** (Best-of-Artist) By Darryl Cater Guitarist Ric Hordinski says he spends a significant percentage of his free time improvising instrumental scores for "movies in my head." This album is filled with such faux film scores (one track was in fact written for an actual movie called Walking to the Waterline, before the director decided he wanted an acoustic soundtrack). T his instrumental CD borrows an idea from one of Hordinski's guitar heroes, Phil Keaggy, who follows each of his pop-rock records with a wordless album. Hush is a perfect companion to Quiver (Hordinski's debut record under the Monk moniker), which was released only six months earlier. While Quiver filled his freewheeling ethereal soundscapes with tightly structured songwriting, Hush lets it all hang out. Hordinski followed the whims of his ears and fingers, idly tooling about with an arsenal of guitar effects (including digital delay and e-bow), then touching up his creations with minimal overdubs of drums and strings. The result: vastly sprawling, hypnotically lulling aural atmospheres, inhabited by unwieldy webs of spiraling melody. The songs seem like spacious, mysterious rooms, waiting to be filled with images. One can't help but hope Hordinski soon gets another shot at composing for film. Amidst all the mellow electric sound, there is also one acoustic number ("Ring Out Ye Crystal Spheres"), which sounds like an homage to Keaggy's sweet folk album Beyond Nature. The downside to all this spontaneity is the uncontrolled meandering and excessive repetition of some tracks. The upside is that it spotlights Hordinski's greatest strengths at this early point in his career. While he was a promising songwriter and producer, he showed a great deal more skill and originality as a guitarist. This project, more than any other before it, allows him to show off his chops.