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NOW STREAMING: TREY ANASTASIO’S LONELY TRIP JASON SAVIO

Leave it to Trey Anastasio to record an entire album by himself while staying indoors during the coronavirus pandemic . Lonely Trip, the newest solo release from the Phish guitarist, is truly a study of loneliness and isolation, having been recorded in Anastasio’s home studio while he was in lockdown at his New York City apartment during the height of the pandemic.

Anastasio had just returned home from a weekend songwriting session with collaborators Tom Marshall and Scott Herman when he found himself unable to leave his apartment because of the city-wide shutdown, he said in a post on his website about the making of Lonely Trip.

Anastasio used that time at home to put those songs to use and create what is basically a home recording that encapsulates how it feels to be trapped and surrounded by an uncertain future.

Armed with just an 8-track recorder and a whole lot of creativity, he delivers his most intriguing album in recent memory, playing all the instruments himself with the help of drum tracks he previously recorded with Phish drummer Jon Fishman.

The album’s opener, “Shaking Someone’s Outstretched Hand,” is an odd and off-kilter number that offers up some late-night weirdness akin to David Bowie’s “Scar Monsters (and Super Creeps),” but mellower.

Songs like “I Never Left Home,” the rock-riff medicine of “I Never Needed You Like This Before,” and “When the Words Go Away” all have a sense of claustrophobia and uncertainty. In the latter, Anastasio sings: “Locked in a capsule for timewithoutend/ Watchingthe world througha pane ora lens/There's nothing to fear when there's nobody near/But silence can kill and there's lots of it here.”

Anastasio is at his best when he’s at his most experimental. The 10 minute-plus “Lotus” is a perfect example of these two different sides of the coin included in the same song as he starts it off as poppy before switching it up into an underwater jam. A harder, industrial-type groove kicks in ahead of numerous different interludes that ultimately circle back to the chorus.

Anastasio proves himself to be no slouch on Lonely Trip when it comes to home recording and producing. Although he put Lonely Trip to tape on his own, it is a multilayered collection of songs that bristles with life, especially “The Silver Light” with its underlying scat vocals.

Many of the songs on Lonely Trip live in a space somewhere between dream and reality, much like the surreal world we’re living in today. Anastasio struggles coming to terms with this new reality, but he hasn’t completely lost hope. He does include glimmers of salvation, most notably closing the album with the whimsical song “Lonely Trip” when he sings: “While we’re on this lonely trip/Keep a watch for other ships/And if by chance our vessels pass/Perhaps we’ll finally meet at last.”

Lonely Trip is not only a testament to Anastasio’s undying need to create and express himself, it also speaks volumes as to how much someone can accomplish on their own with passion and the aid of a little technology. Sure, anyone can have the tools, but the difference is knowing how to use them, and Anastasio does, proving himself to be a oneman band. It’s an impressive feat from an accomplished musician who’s always finding new ways to grow.