The architects of modern fingerstyle guitar built their temple with steel. Sure, you have your Bola Setes, your Tashi Dorjis, the odd occasion Six Organs of Admittance would reach for a nylon-string; but the vast majority of fingerpickers walking in John Fahey’s footsteps seem to have felt similarly as Robbie Basho, who once claimed that while the classical guitar may be fit for more romantic songs, steel-strings had the “fire.” Mason Lindahl, however, would beg to differ: He plays his classical guitar as if he were blowing out the final embers of some cave-dwelling flame, then tracing the smoke as it dances through the air. His music is stark yet warm, swirling yet still, violent yet hauntingly gentle.
Lindahl has remained an elusive figure in…