Leo Abrahams

One day I was reading Leo Abrahams’ blog  when I turned to my wife and said, “I want this guy’s life.” He had been describing the week’s activities, which might include a session with Brian Eno, live gigs with the likes of Bryan Ferry and Marianne Faithful, a solo guitar gig performing tunes from his instrumental records Scene Memory and Honeytrap, composing film music for The Lovely Bones, arranging strings for Ed Harcourt, or producing an up and coming band like  Frightened Rabbit. Recently, with little time for his own music, he has managed to cobble together an EP of six-songs, Zero Sum. Though not a “guitar” record per se, it is chock full of guitar generated tones that will prick up your ears. I have interviewed the British musican before, most recently for a piece on using a laptop in live performance. Here we get a glimpse of the man’s beginnings, influences, and gear.

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HEXE Guitar Electronics

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

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Ibanez ES-2 Echo Shifter

In the morass of analog and digital delays on display at the January 2013 NAMM show, the Ibanez Echo Shifter’s ($150 Street) retro styling made it stand out from the crowd. An old school sliding fader to adjust delay time? —Cool! The Oscillation switch too aroused curiosity. It only remained to get one in and see if it was as interesting sonically as it was visually.

ES-2

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Real Time World Music

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.

with choir

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Radiohead Meets Tiesto

Often modern guitar can be about context. In Radiohead guitars are warped and mangled sonically, but here Thom Yorke  perfectly places a normal guitar sound  in an EDM type setting. Any suggestions for others out there doing this?

PS Check out the cool use of the Electro-Harmonix looper on his voice.

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Dino Blog: Zoom MS 50 G

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.

ms 50

 

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.

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Torn Talks at Ted


But more important, he plays. David speaks briefly at the end about the harrowing experience with a benign but big brain tumor that left him deaf in one ear. First, however, we get to hear him do that ambient looping voodoo that he does so well, and get to hear his new Ronin guitar in action.

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