4 posts tagged “guitar”

So someone did a very good thing(tm) and made a snappy little guitar from a 15 dollar Ikea table.

Since I was on a Zappa kick yesterday, I have now moved over to one of his former sidemen.  I have actually had the fun of hanging out with Mr. Keneally a few times, and he is almost too normal and laid back for words.  He also gets better with each release, and while I have not heard his latest, I really enjoy Wooden Smoke, which is a surprisingly rich acoustic album (it doesn't mine cheeky folkiness, but has a really adventurous mix of avant-pop akin to XTC and Kevin Gilbert as well as some amazing instrumentals).  My favorite is the last two tracks.

...makes really nice guitars.  Like this one (clicky clicky).

Caspar Brötzmann & Page Hamilton

Zulutime
Blast First 1996

Well, I am not sure how to start.  I like avant-garde and experimental music as much as one could guess, and Zulutime hits me in al the right primal-cerebral bridge points.  But I have to say, this is very demanding material, and if you are not prepared, it is going to hurt.

The pedigree on this recording should give a hint as to the level of unbridled force at work; Brotzmann is the son of noise-jazz ubderdude Peter Brotzmann, who work with Last Exit is required earfood for initiates.  Page Hamilton is most famous for being the mind and mouth behind metal minimalists Helmet, but also has a masters in jazz guitar and has done stints with Glenn Branca.

It is just two guitarists working with heavily amplified drones, shrieks, structured atonality, and an akamai of dissonance washing over the whole affair. It is something I could describe as the soundtrack to a personal regimen of cleansing by self-atomization.  It's like trying to acheive Zen no-mind by self-initiating a sonic mind-shred.  Even the more spaced out, drone-heavy passages (i.e. parts of Dream Date, and the opening of Imbiss) are quite an earful; a sense of dread and hinting that the relative calm is transitory before another tidal surge of controlled feedback and distortion swells up again.

I liked it.