miscellaneous

Next Wednesday I will play with my new band, the Soft Power Ensemble of Vienna, in Fluc, Vienna, the same venue where we performed with Yuri Landman. The band comprises 9 guitarists, plus drums and bass, and is not far from reaching sonic heavens. 

Didn't have a real band for 10 years, as I was busy with dance, multimedia performances and electronic music - it feels really good! I will post some music here soon.

These are the handwound pickups Jaime Campbell at The Creamery made for the Epsilon. We chose blade humbuckers with alnico 5 magnets for versatility and warmth. 

For some stupid marketing reasons, not-overwound pickups are called 'vintage' - that is in electric guitar business if you don't play metal, you play old school rock… the Epsilon will prove that wrong!

more sketches

music of the week: well, the music that thrills me lately is the one I play in my new music projects, the most advanced being the Soft Power Ensemble of Vienna, a many guitars improvisation orchestra that will play its first concert on January 29th in Fluc, Vienna. We gathered a fine bunch of guitarists - supported by a rhythm section - and figured how to combine sonic mayhem and musicality. Or a least we try...

The other project - with electronics, voices and guitars - still requires a lot of work so I will talk about it later, but we're on it!  

more sketches

music of the month: it's been long since my last post so I heard a lot of music, and it's not easy to chose. What actually stood up are bits of Astor Piazzolla songs I heard here and there - at the music school where I take my kid every week, practiced by a piano/violin duo in the studio next door, or in a metro station performed by a busking Russian band with accordion, hammered dulcimer and contrabass balalaika… I love Piazzolla, at some part of my life I've been listening exclusively to his music - I guess at the time I was myself playing the most hardcore noise music…

Otherwise even though I couldn't draw so much, I did many things - I started a new band called the Soft Power Ensemble of Vienna with many guitarists, and we play our first concert at the end of January.  I joined the Neu New York/Vienna Institute of Improvised Music sessions - that's how they call the monday evening improv jams at the Celeste jazz club -, and had the opportunity to play with very fine musicians there - more free jazz than noise improv but it's good to explore new areas, that's what I need right now. I learned how to use the Volcas I acquired a few weeks ago and I start to know what I can and want to do with them - though I still have to test them in a studio at high volume. 

And of course the Epsilon project goes on - though it's not in my hands anymore for the moment - and further projects are in discussion, we should build the Alpha next, and we are considering creating a company…