Alex Pasternak records and releases music under a number of often collaborative aliases – Saidera, Dr. Bronzer, Florecer, for example – but as far as I know “Offshore”, is the first full album length set focused on sounds generated solo with his guitar(s). You can date the Californian’s musical output back to the turn of the millennium when he was in hardcore outfit The Fire Next Time, alongside “superstar” DJ Steve Aoki. Pasternak has been working on his 6-string dexterity for decades, and it shows. 

“Cascades” is laidback, sun-stroked. Reflecting Pasternak’s current home surroundings of Half Moon Bay. Its pretty plucking summoning a sense of lazing, lounging. All blissed out bent notes and tender tremolo touches. Its fancy fretwork flights full of light and recalling photographer Steve Hiett’s heat-hazed Japan-only sketches for Sony. “Fades”, instead, beneath field recorded surf, seabirds and children’s chatter, turns Pasternak’s playing into shapeshifting, singing bowl textures. “Cuts”, similarly is a lullaby of stretched sooting tones, and an infant’s joyful gigging, while “Fortunes Fall” toys with more traditional forms. Its folky picking mirroring The Stones’ mimicking of medieval madrigals. 

The highlight, however, is “Illuminated”, which finds Pasternak flicking the switch on his Echoplex, and running layer over layer of rapid, rhythmic Spanish-leaning plugged-in pirouetting, and clipped, jazzy strumming. The results rushing in an emotive Manuel Gottsching-esque fashion. 

Alex Pasternak’s “Offshore” can be ordered directly from Lo Recordings.