Multiple award-winning South African guitarist and composer Guy Buttery has announced Improvisations From A Rural Church: Volume I, the first instalment in a series of recordings made over eight days and nights in the KwaZulu-Natal Midlands.
The album’s first single is already available on all platforms, with the full 16-track album scheduled for release on 12 November 2026.
Solitude and Deliberate Limitations
Recorded inside a small church overlooking maize fields and cattle pastures, the album finds Guy Buttery working entirely alone for the first time in a 25-year career spanning more than 15 albums.
Embracing deliberate limitations – including no pre-existing compositions, no overdubs, no corrections, and even an injured finger – the session produced a deeply vulnerable body of work.
Of the 121 pieces captured, tracks were compiled into a three-part series after six months of reflection, retaining their original session numbers.
Guy Buttery is using the Church as an Instrument
Moving between acoustic and prepared guitars, shakuhachi, swarmandal, and the church’s own pump organ, the music bridges contemporary acoustic composition, ambient folk, and free improvisation.
Two microphones captured the direct performances while three others recorded the natural resonance of the stone hall’s wooden pews. Environmental sounds – including bats, birds, passing tractors, and stormy weather – were intentionally preserved as part of the recording space.
A portion of the proceeds from the release will be donated to the Dargle Conservancy to support community-led efforts protecting the uMngeni catchment and the mistbelt forests of the KwaZulu-Natal Midlands.
You can stream the first single off the album HERE.
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