Among many, many other releases to his name over the past decade-plus, the Asheville-based Bhutanese guitarist Tashi Dorji teamed up with Drag City for an illuminating album called Stateless back in 2020. He’ll release another one on the iconic Chicago label this fall under the title we will be wherever the fires are lit. Dorji’s experimental, improv-based approach to acoustic guitar — billed on his Bandcamp bio as “a post-colonial disembowlment of guitar traditions” — has landed him work alongside fellow greats like Bill Orcutt and C. Spencer Yeh. On “begin from here,” the first track from the new LP, you can hear that discipline yielding inspired results in real time. It’s a percussive, hypnotic experience worth getting lost in.

A word from Dorji:

begin from here
Begin from here…our world lives when their world ceases to exist
Begin from here…with hopes, between silent skies, while world breathes again and the fever subsides
Begin from here…and to those who strike blows
Begin from here…while we keep going
Begin from here…while we mourn, we also fight

We will be wherever the fires are lit!

– Tashi Dorji, 2024

Hear “begin from here” below.

TRACKLIST:
01 “begin from here”
02 “we will be wherever the fires are lit”
03 “requiem for jonas”
04 “center can’t hold…”
05 “flowers for the unsung”
06 “impossible friendship”
07 “…and the state sank into abyss”
08 “new signals///////”
09 “rhythm/refrain”
10 “meet me under the ruins”

we will be wherever the fires are lit is out 11/22 on Drag City.