Here is something that should get the creative juices going. String Jacks can be placed under any number of strings anywhere on the neck to allow the equivalent of bending behind the nut, Koto-type sounds, and other effects. Rich Eberlen sells them for a reasonable $28 on his site where he also shows how he makes very cool music with them.
I don’t know how Piotr Zapart’s creations have escaped my radar for so long, but thanks to a David Torn Facebook post I checked out the HEXE Guitar Electronics website. Torn mentioned the HEXE Revolver pedal, which looks to be the perfect glitch machine for creating Torn/Stian Westerus type glitch loops and much, much more. Hope to get one in for review, but until then, the website is full of great demo videos. Also, here is a link to an interview with Piotr .
There is no pricing on the website but you can contact Piotr at pzapart@gmx.net
An early explorer of echo-based looping, Günther Schickert is not as well-known as, say, Robert Fripp, but deserves recognition as a modern guitar pioneer.
A new project from JA Deane will feature him conducting—in the Butch Morris sense— a guitar choir. It promises to be a major step forward in modern guitar. Also eagerly anticipated is his Black iron Trio project, hinted at here.
On April 28th, Nashville/Warsaw, Poland-based composer and performer Robert Bond and guitarist Denny Jiosa presented a program of music as part of the Zeitgeist gallery’s 2013 Indeterminacies schedule. It featured a real-time musical collaboration, via Skype, with a vocal group from Ma’anshan No. 2 Middle School from China. As the choir sang a traditional Chinese song interspersed with recited poetry, Bond and Jiosa improvised chords and beats.
For the most part Europeans, and especially Scandinavians, are miles ahead of Americans when it comes to the seamless integration of jazz with sampling, beats, and electronics that is Nü-Jazz. Nils Petter Molvær brought out Khmer in 1995, while Bugge Wesseltoft, Jazzanova and St. Germain have been working this territory easily as long. Guitarists mining this particular type of fusion also seem to reside on the east side of the Atlantic: Eivind Aarset, Bram Stadhouders, Jeff Beck, Stian Westerhus, and Nguyên Lê have been long at home with the grooves of EDM and/or the sounds of experimental electronica.
The most impressive distortion pedal at the 2013 NAMM show, as far as modern, experimental guitar (or bass) playing goes, was Loud Button’s WTF. A great demo by Jimmy Rolle for Effects Bay.
The most successful juxtaposition of electric guitar within a classical context I ever witnessed was Bill Frisell performing a piece combining his inimitable sound with a chamber orchestra. It was written by guitarist/composer Steve Mackey, who has been, you will pardon the expression, instrumental in expanding the role of the electric guitar in the classical music realm. The New York Times just published an interesting piece about him, and he will be releasing a record by his new music/prog supergroup, Big Farm, in May. Hope to have a full interview at that time. Until then, here is a taste of Mackey.
It might be stretching it a bit to call Tim Olive a guitarist. His instrument generally has a single string that he attacks as much as plays. But if Keith Rowe is a guitarist, then we must suppose so is Olive—just a minimalist version. It is ultimately harder to make music out of noise than notes, but Olive succeeds more often than he fails, serving as a fine example to those who toil in the garden of chaotic improvisation, attempting to grow something beautiful in the soil of pure sound.
My review of the Zoom MS-100BT MultiStomp Guitar Pedal with Bluetooth will be coming up in Guitar Player magazine in the next couple of months, but until then check ou J.A. Deane’s rundown of the MS-50 G. “Dino” is a titan of improv and live sampling and knows whereof he speaks.
These Zoom units offer a plethora of classic and zany effects that sound great and all fit in one small pedal space on your board or table.