All Songs Considered

Viking's Choice 2025: The Guitar

December 30, 2025

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  • The 2025 Viking's Choice retrospective on *All Songs Considered* focuses exclusively on the exceptional diversity and quality of guitar music across genres throughout the year. 
  • The resurgence of fingerstyle guitar is attributed to the enduring influence of Jack Rose and a cultural backlash against AI favoring organic, human music. 
  • Lars Gotrich curated the episode around the guitar, highlighting everything from intense fingerstyle and desert blues power trios to ambient reinterpretations of jazz standards and ecstatic shredding. 

Segments

Introduction to Viking’s Choice
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(00:40)
  • Key Takeaway: Lars Gotrich curates the annual Viking’s Choice retrospective for All Songs Considered.
  • Summary: Lars Gotrich, editor of the Tiny Desk series, hosts the annual Viking’s Choice retrospective on All Songs Considered. This recurring series highlights the ‘wild and weird and wonderful music’ Gotrich discovers throughout the year. The 2025 theme for this closing episode is ‘The Guitar’.
Gwenifer Raymond: Fingerstyle Intensity
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(02:45)
  • Key Takeaway: Gwenifer Raymond’s album Last Night I Heard the Dog Star Bark features intense, beautiful fingerstyle guitar described as ‘one-woman speed metal’.
  • Summary: Gwenifer Raymond, a Welsh guitarist and astrophysicist, creates haunting and raw fingerstyle music that maintains strong thematic structure. Her playing style is so physically intense it makes listeners feel ‘inside the belly of the guitar’. Her work continues the tradition revitalized by Jack Rose.
Fingerstyle Renaissance Theories
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(06:12)
  • Key Takeaway: The fingerstyle guitar renaissance is fueled by a desire for organic human music (AI backlash) and cultural reminders of roots music (the ‘Sinner’s effect’).
  • Summary: One theory for the fingerstyle boom is the backlash against AI, driving demand for entirely human and organic music. Another factor is the ‘Sinner’s effect,’ similar to the revival sparked by the film O Brother, Where Art Thou, reminding audiences of the power of folk and Americana.
Hayden Pedigo’s Lyrical Guitar
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(09:05)
  • Key Takeaway: Hayden Pedigo’s track “Houndstooth” showcases his mastery of lyrical, storytelling guitar playing, now incorporating strings and light band arrangements.
  • Summary: Hayden Pedigo’s playing is characterized by a delicate yet demonstrative touch, making him a master storyteller without words. His song “Houndstooth” features significant musical movement while remaining calming and structured like a narrative with chapters. His style is instantly recognizable to listeners familiar with his work.
Power Trio Explosion in 2025
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(11:40)
  • Key Takeaway: 2025 was a surprisingly strong year for the virtuoso guitar-bass-drums power trio format, exemplified by Takat.
  • Summary: Takat, Mdu Moktar’s backing band, represents the power trio format, blending Tuareg desert blues with dub and punk attitudes, citing influences like Fugazi. Their live energy at Rhizome was described as loud and vibrating, offering a looser, more expansive sound than Mdu Moktar’s recent work.
Restrung Repertoire: Jazz Standards Deconstructed
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(17:13)
  • Key Takeaway: Rafael Toral’s Traveling Light reimagines jazz standards, like Miles Davis’s “You Don’t Know What Love Is,” into unrecognizable, stretched-out ambient pieces.
  • Summary: Rafael Toral, a Portuguese artist, takes familiar repertoire and stretches the audio to create hour-long ambient pieces, making every chord change feel significant. The resulting sound is slow, space-traveling, and slightly creepy, reminiscent of Twin Peaks or the film Angel Heart.
Laura Snowden’s Classical Debut
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(22:35)
  • Key Takeaway: British-French classical guitarist Laura Snowden’s debut album This Changing Sky features technically demanding compositions used in guitar schools.
  • Summary: Laura Snowden, considered one of the world’s finest classical guitarists, uses nylon string guitar on her debut album, creating a tone reminiscent of a lute. Her original pieces are technically complex, requiring precise focus on tone and phrasing, which is why they are used for grading students. The album also features wordless vocal voicings in conversation with the guitar.
South African Zulu Guitar Conversation
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(26:39)
  • Key Takeaway: Madala Kunene and Sibusile Shaba’s collaborative album kwaNTU captures the warm, communal spirit of Zulu guitar tradition.
  • Summary: The album kwaNTU was recorded quickly by master guitarist Madala Kunene and his student Sibusile Shaba, resulting in perfect ‘Sunday afternoon music.’ The instrumental tracks sound like a conversation between two guitars, blending traditional Zulu styles with slight jazz fusion elements from the younger player. Kunene aims to raise awareness of his legendary status outside of South Africa.
William Tyler’s Glitched Hymns
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(30:54)
  • Key Takeaway: William Tyler’s Time Indefinite uses glitched, ambient textures to explore themes of a broken world while embedding a seed of hope, such as in “Star of Hope.”
  • Summary: William Tyler’s recent work, including Time Indefinite, has moved toward more experimental and woozy sounds, contrasting with his traditional Americana style. The track “Star of Hope” incorporates a melody found on a gritty, static-filled AM radio hymn broadcast. This interaction with the source material creates a feeling of hopeful reflection after a difficult year.
Keeping Guitar Weird: Rhythmic Experimentation
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(35:07)
  • Key Takeaway: Peruvian guitarist Jorge Espinal treats the guitar body as a percussive instrument, creating joyous, complex rhythms using loopers and foot controls.
  • Summary: Jorge Espinal focuses on the physicality of the guitar, using not just the strings but also hitting the body to create rhythms, which are then layered using loop pedals. He performs these complex, multi-instrumental pieces live using his hands and feet simultaneously. Espinal believes that any object can become an instrument through intention.
Vernon Reed’s Ecstatic Shred Finale
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(38:48)
  • Key Takeaway: Vernon Reed’s solo album Hoodoo Telemetry delivers essential guitar shredding mixed with fusion, hip-hop, and jazz elements.
  • Summary: Vernon Reed’s solo record Hoodoo Telemetry showcases his mastery, blending the energy of Living Colour with fusion and hip-hop influences. The track “Meditation on The Last Time I Saw Arthur Rames” provided the necessary ecstatic shredding to conclude the guitar-focused episode. Listeners are encouraged to check npr.org/allsongs for a longer version of the list.