By CHRISTIAN CAREY
Published: February, 2005

Guitarist Richard Leo Johnson, heard here in a trio setting with electric violinist (and theremin player) Richard Ochoa and synthesist Andrew Ripley, draws upon a variety of influences in his musical approach. There's a pastoral sensibility to his acoustic guitar playing, reminiscent of the simple lyricism of jazzers Bill Frisell and Pat Metheny in gentler, unplugged settings. Other sections suggest a kind of alt-country-meets-new-age vibe. His electric guitar outings, on the other hand, have a fusion tinge. Overall, when teamed with the amplified instruments played by Ochoa and Ripley, Johnson creates a quirky kind of instrumental music that evokes all sorts of musical styles without fully inhabiting any of them, establishing Poetry of Appliance as an eccentric, but often appealing, aural document.
The record is at its best when the trio sets into an exciting groove and allows the improvisational flights of fancy to flow freely, as on the fiddle-filled "Glide Path" and "Highway 420 Revisited". Also diverting is "Charmin' Carmen", an overtly Western-themed lyrical ballad that easily evokes dusty trails and tumbleweed, all the while serving as diverting music. "Eulogy" is spacious, ambling and delicately hued. Johnson and company have really mastered the slow build-up as an overall formal design, as evidenced on "Haploid Springs" and "Her to Hymn". "The Moon is a Sky Thing" is a more electrified excursion, filled with spacy sounds and tight electric guitar leads.
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