Larger Than Life

ADRIAN BELEW PUSHES THE LIMITS OF SONG AND SOUND ON POP SIDED, HIS NEW ALBUM OF ANYTHING-BUT-CONVENTIONAL POP MUSIC.

- Michael Ross

ADRIAN BELEW’S NEW self-released record, Pop Sided, is his first compilation of complete, immutable compositions since 2006’s Side Three. But Belew has been far from idle in the interim. Under the rubric Flux, he has released two apps: Flux by Belew, which mixes recordings of tunes that never play the same way twice with snippets of sounds and visual art, and Flux:FX, a multi-effects processor for iPad. He has also kept up a touring schedule with his power trio, using cutting-edge technology to fill out the sound and provide all the distinctive effects he has developed through the years.

Belew is in that pantheon of players like Jimi Hendrix, Jeff Beck and later Tom Morello, all of whom have pushed the limits of what an electric guitar can do. In his work with David Bowie, Talking Heads, Trent Reznor and King Crimson, he has wrenched sounds reminiscent of everything from animals to aliens from his electric rigs du jour. But the guitarist opens Pop Sided unplugged, with the song “When Will It Come Back,” where he strums some flat-tops over his drums (Belew plays all the instruments on the record). As it turns out, acoustic guitars played a large part in the project’s genesis and recording.

“I have two Taylor GS Minis,” Belew says. “One is tuned to standard. The other is tuned, from the high E down, E B E then D A D. So you’ve got a D triad and, on top of that, an E triad. About two years ago, I began popping out of bed every day, grabbing an acoustic guitar and writing songs. Before I knew it, I had maybe 30 or so songs in various states, so I decided to make a regular record again. Pop Sided is meant to be a throwback to when you had your best 11 new songs and put them on a record. When writing them, the idea was to be able to sit down and play a complete song on the acoustic guitar.”