schneider tm: guitar sounds

"Sounds" series part two: electric guitar explorations. Dirk Dresselhaus aka Schneider TM turned building-site noise into music on Construction Sounds. On his latest offering, he explores the full potential of the electric guitar and an array of effects. Dresselhaus is no stranger to the instrument, it is fair to say. He played guitar in the 1990s for several experimental indie combos and has made liberal, idiosyncratic use of the instrument over the past couple of decades as Schneider TM in electronic music, film, radio plays, and various other sound projects. Technical perfection is not paramount on Guitar Sounds. The focus is on spontaneity, improvisation -- if the result is flawed in the classic sense of the word, this concerns him not one iota. Dresselhaus is interested in atmosphere, in the intensity and magic of the initial moment when decisions are made and played without knowing which direction they will take or where they might end -- music without a safety net, so to speak. Unleashed, the guitar sound takes on its own life, in the spirit of generative music. At the decisive moment, Dresselhaus reins it back, like a dog-owner tugging on the lead, thereby creating an energy field between tension and relief, harmony and disharmony, control and loss of control, construction and deconstruction, positivity and negativity, sobriety, and humor. Or to use a more striking image: surf-sound dualism. All tracks are improvised ("Instant Composition"), none composed in advance. Some pieces were inspired by films or were improvised to film (e. g. "Teilhard" by Christoph Ischinger). The basic "Überzahl" track and elements of "Landslide" were used in Carsten Ludwig's film In der Überzahl and completed with overdubs for this album. The equipment list runs as follows: various electric guitars and bass guitars, lap steel guitar, travel guitar, line amplifiers and combo tube amplifiers, reverbs, echoes, delays, looper pedals, octave effect boxes, pitch shifters, isolation cabinets, filters, cello bows and bottlenecks.