Recorded in 1991, Ask The Ages was the last album of Sharrock's to be released before his premature death from heart failure, aged 53, in 1994. Though it overlaps with his tenure in the scabrous noise-jazz outfit Last Exit, alongside Peter Brötzmann, Ronald Shannon Jackson and Bill Laswell, the music here is a far less confrontational proposition – and considerably more straightahead than his earlier avant-garde collaborations with vocalist wife Linda Sharrock, such as 1969's Black Woman. Produced by Laswell (who had more or less single-handedly coaxed Sharrock out of retirement and into a revived career in the 1980s), this date finds the guitarist leading an inter-generational quartet of heavyweights: ex-Coltrane alumni Sanders and Jones, joined by bassist Moffett, then only in his early twenties. Tracks like ‘Promises Kept’ and ‘Little Rock’ are deep, earthy swingers with Jones on characteristically crashing form and Sanders pushing his tenor into extreme altissimo squonk. Over these – and on the growling modal vamp ‘Many Mansions’ – Sharrock daubs bright, crisp, multi-tracked electric guitar heads, peeling off into intense solos that veer from aching lyricism to spurts of molten energy, while Laswell's production essentially presents a hard-swinging jazz group with the glossy sheen of a 1980s metal band. This reissue has been remastered and pressed on two LPs at 45rpm, allowing for a richer listening experience than on the long out-of-print original: here, the ballad ‘Who Does She Hope To Be?’ shimmers in a haze of brushes, sonorous bass and Sharrock's precise, painterly strokes. It's a fine epitaph to a true guitar original.