Ariel Posen Bannatyne Vinyl

For Ariel Posen, songwriting and guitar playing have always gone hand-in-hand. He's spent a decade building a bridge between those two worlds, balancing his work as a hotshot instrumentalist — including collaborations with everyone from John Mayer to Tom Jones — with solo albums rooted in melody and autobiographical storytelling. The result is a career that's every bit as diverse as his music. With performances at Eric Clapton's CrossroadsGuitar Festival, his own Fender Stratocaster signature model, and a powerful voice that matches his fretwork, Posen explores uncharted territory, blurring the lines between genre and generation along the way. On his latest release, Bannatyne, that exploration leads Posen back to the place where everything began. Named after an avenue in his hometown of Winnipeg, Manitoba, it's a record about reexamining one's past in order to fully appreciate the present. Woven into the album's 12 songs are larger-than-life riffs and upbeat tempos (a nod to the 1990s rock Music that soundtracked Posen's childhood), along with the syncopated grooves and explorative, unexpected textures that have always steered his work. Co-produced by Posen and longtime collaborator Murray Pulver, Bannatyne certainly feels right. This is Posen's unique vision of electrified roots music: song-driven, fretwork-fueled, and unmistakably his own.