Time Out New York review of "The Well of Memory"
Performing live with just a guitar, Pat Gubler (a.k.a. P.G. Six) could pass for a long-lost cousin of Bert Jansch or any comparable cornerstone of the ‘60s U.K. folk revival. On record, though, he adds layers of electric guitar, odd electronics, piano and harp to the core of his resonant guitar and baritone voice, resulting in a strikingly modernist update of the style.
His new CD opens with “Well of Memory Part I,” an abstract piece for harp in which the cloud of dissonant sonorities sometimes evokes John Cage’s compositions for prepared piano. “Part II,” near the end of the record, starts with sustained, uneasy organ chords before the opening harp motif briefly returns. The understatedly virtuosic guitar arpeggios and simple vocal melody of “Crooked Way” could stand alone, but the desert shimmer of two slightly distorted electric guitars and Helen Rush’s oblique backup singing add a genre-bending air of mystery. And “Old Man on the Mountain” is the most straightforward example of a folk song in the vein of Gubler’s influences (such as Jansch and Sandy Denny).
Gubler’s live repertoire takes all this, adds songs from his first (and equally fine) record and delivers pleasant surprises like a cover of Townes Van Zandt’s “High, Low and in Between.” For anyone looking for a working definition of acid-folk that is not self-consciously dunked in patchouli, this is an excellent place to start.
— Bob Bannister