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music of the week: lately I've spent some time watching and listening to San Francisco Bay Area YouTube channel PressureDrop.tv - enjoying pretty good guitar-based live music... Didn't listen to everything yet but so far I particularly enjoyed Purling Hiss and Summer Cannibals. 

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Music of the week: Continuum, the 2014 gamelan-based concept album by Singaporean art rock band The Observatory. I need asian percussions for my next project!

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Music of the month: lately I bought some Miles Davis albums from his late 60s / early 70s electric era and I never have enough go his music... I was more familiar with his earlier and later work (I saw him on his Tutu tour some time back in the 20th century), but this phase is just fantastic - and you can find some full concert videos of the 1973 european tour on YouTube. And I really enjoy the music of Canadian band Suuns that combines beautifully synths and guitars, as much as pop and minimalism.

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Music of the month: started to work on a new project with guitar/baritone guitar, piano/synth and drums... Still trying to combine incompatible influences such as jazz fusion and batcave, minimal repetitive music and free improv! As we exchanged music to try to understand what we three have in common, we discovered than we all like The Dead Weather a lot, and decided to make a free instrumental cover of 'Treat Me Like Your Mother'... Otherwise my favorite guitar sound lately is  made by Reignwolf.

BTW, this is the 500th post on this blog...

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Still struggling with time to keep this blog active - I do manage to get projects done though - music, instruments, etc... - but posting here comes after the rest at the moment. It will get better.

Music of the now: Parallelograms by Linda Perhacs - my only folk album since Neil Young's Harvest 30 years ago... I can indulge in sweet melodies and harmonies sometimes...

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You might have noticed that my posting has been scarce in the last months, but I have a very good reason for that (I always have a good reason, have I not?): since last December I am the proud father of a baby girl (sleeping in my arms as I write these words) and my priorities have shifted. But I'm coming back slowly to my guitar-based activities - concerts, projects, design... More instrument-based projects actually, since my synth collection increased and I've been practicing with them more than with guitars - it's easier to play keyboards/MIDI interface with a baby on your lap (I'm an adept of attachment parenting, but it's another story...) 

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Music of the week: in the last days I've been listening to everything I could find online by João Gilberto - and particularly to Chega de Saudade with his then 14-year old daughter Bebel. However noisy and chaotic the music I listen to or play, there is always room for old school bossa nova in my heart...

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music of the week / month / maybe year: can't stop listening to David Bowie's Blackstar - since his come back it was clear that he was moving beyond pop - but it's even better, he's moving pop beyond pop. 

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Ladies and gentlemen, the Epsilon!

I didn't post about it for a while but my first real guitar project the Epsilon is finished and it's a great player as much as a real beauty. The idea was to make a guitar both ergonomic and looking wild - one I would want to play on stage -, and if I believe the feedback I've had so far it's not a complete failure. 

The body is made of ash, the neck is maple (neck-through-body construction) and the fretboard is plum (all woods come from Europe). Pickups are handwound The Creamery Custom Double Track Humbuckers (they sound just wonderful!), wraparound bridge and locking tuners are Schaller, knobs and switch are Duesenberg, pickguard is laser cut polished aluminium. 

It was a long and sometimes difficult process (I'll make another post later about the whole story) but I'm delighted with the result. Some of you have been following this blog for years and witnessed my many attempts at designing then making guitars, now I know why I've dedicated so much time and effort: the Epsilon is not only a great achievement for me, but I hope also the first step of a great journey!

 

 

Of course you don't have to believe me when I say it's a great guitar, so I asked Argentinian guitarist extraordinaire Diego Munè to test the Epsilon, and it's like they were made for each other - Diego's music is right for the guitar and he really loves it...

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Sorry I haven't been posting lately - heavier  schedule, spring flu, a little lack of inspiration…
My music of the week has been all I could find on YouTube by Mamani Keïta - an amazing singer from Mali who's been working with many kind of musicians - from jazz to rock, electro and African pop… I like her music so much that I started to practice west-African scales on guitar!

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Music of the week: lately I've been listening to everything I  could find online by Antonio Carlos Jobim - preferably with Elis Regina but not only. All my life bossa nova has been cheering me up - it's the soundtrack of my childhood (Brazilian music was really big in France in the 1970s) and it came back at different moments of my life to create emotional memories. Now I just have to hear the first notes of Aguas de Março to open a window to an happy carefree summer...

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music of the week: lately I've been listening a lot again to what we recorded last fall with my band Soft Power Ensemble of Vienna, as we start mixing our first album today (actually right now I'm in the studio, having a break while some file are uploading).