Guitarist Jay Matharu released this mind bending album a couple years ago in October of 2017.  He definitely pushed a lot of genre boundaries on his album, blending lots of great sounds.  Matharu mixed progressive music, jazz, blues, and I think I even heard some progressions that were influenced from classic rock and classic progressive music of the 70’s! Putting it short and sweet: his sound is very wide, and not narrow at all.  It was a joy to listen to a soulful, musical album by a guitarist and not a guitar masterclass.  That style probably turns off more people who don’t want so much speed and technical parts that they won’t bother.  In this case though, “These Clouds Are So Undisciplined” is an album full of emotion and surprises.

Jay has a really good ear, and it really helped big time when he wrote this album.  There’s a lot of subtle melodies underneath a lot of the sections, and really stand out especially on the ending of “I Regress”.  It’s a definite change in pace to your average aggressive guitarist instrumental album, and is a lot more laid back.  Sure, there’s some heavy and rocking parts but it’s more experimental and calm for the most part.  In fact, his playing isn’t really speed focused.  Jay’s guitar style is a lot more melodic, soulful and emotional.  It’s not based off how fast he can play or how many sweep picking patterns he can do in 10 seconds.  Simply put, it’s a very mature virtuoso styled album that shows its true colors (and there’s lots of colors his album shows).

Matharu also had a plethora of guest musicians on this album.  They are as listed as follows:

Andreas Boliden – Digital Trumpet solo on “Kaleidoscope” (03:11)
Ponch Satrio – Guitar solo on “Illumination” (04:24)
Nili Brosh – Guitar solo on “Breath In, Breathe Out” (05:18)
Oscar Hansson – Bass guitar on “A Mother’s Love”
Emil Ingmar – Piano on “The Battle Within”
Kaffe Myers – Drums on all tracks
Max Nyström – Audio editing, Mixing & Mastering
Jay Matharu – Everything else

“These Clouds Are So Undisciplined!” is a musically engaging album that will shock you every song.  Give instrumental music a shot.  What is there to lose? He’s a totally different guitarist than the hip, fast playing guys.  He packs a lot of emotion into his leads, some groovy riffs and some psychedelic laid back proggy sections to throw you off for a bit.  Check out the album below if you’re intrigued by any of this.  I hope you are!