Gary Smith - June 2008

By Massimo Ricci

This interview came out from many months of email conversation between 2007 and 2008 with guitar explorer Gary Smith, following a review of his “SuperTexture” CD (Sijis) on Paris Transatlantic. Those who know Mr. Smith’s work need no additional words from here; the others - and I don’t mean guitarists only - might be interested in knowing something more about a man who’s at home both in Bill Fay’s group and in any setting where a disfigured concept of guitar playing is necessary - either solo or flanked by fellow improvisers. Visit garysmith.org for further info.

I read that you have a lot of respect for Allan Holdsworth and John McLaughlin. David Torn once said that he created his own style trying to “run away” from a similarity to Holdsworth’s at the beginning of his career. Did you ever happen to experience something similar, a process of “admiration first, escape later” from a musician you felt was influencing your playing?

The comments about Allan Holdsworth were to do with authenticity in playing really. I wasn’t interested in playing like him (this is around c.1974/5) but I thought he had his own voice, plus real feeling, probably a very intuitive approach. The legato style of his playing would not have suited me. I was influenced by McLaughlin, particularly the Tony Williams Lifetime album “Emergency” and his playing around that period and into the first Mahavishnu Orchestra album. Also some of Ray Russell’s earlier playing.

As to “escaping” from an influence, I’ve never really sat down and copied guitarists from albums, even when I first started playing. I’d listen a lot of course, study from books, learning, but not sat and learnt note for note off someone else. I’d just assimilate, try and make my own decisions about what I needed. Also, my background is in songs and up to the period I’ve mentioned I’d played a lot of commercial music, learning things quickly, using my ear, was very important.

It occurred to me when I was quite young, that I couldn’t be someone else. It’s a trap to get too close to someone else’s influence because it’s a comfort, technically and emotionally. So, as I sort of kept a step away from whoever I admired, escaping/developing out of the influence wasn’t as difficult as it could have been. Of course, around that ‘70s period the influences could be heard in my playing, but less and less (I’m fortunate to have a lot of live recordings from that time showing this evolution) and I found myself imagining more and more what I wanted to do. Developing my imagination really. It’s the same as now, problem solving and still as satisfying.

There’s a very meaningful quote from Peter Green concerning his playing, he said “I was just doing a B.B. King”. As he realised, more than most perhaps, there’s more to music than just “the music”, but that’s another issue.

A definition that you used for your style is “textural counterpoint”, and a recent outing of yours is named “SuperTexture”. Yet, the perception I usually have when listening to your improvisations is something that has more to do with crumbled lines and dismembered chords rather than an intersection/parallelism between different timbres. It seems to me that textures are born from a conscious destruction of regular playing, in a way. Do you ever plan in advance the “area” of sound that you want to pursue in a piece, or it just comes out after you start playing?

The “SuperTexture” title is there to suggest the multiple activities I produce on the guitar and also I liked the idea of it alluding to the nature of most of the music on the second CD, other peoples treatments of my playing. Detailed music.

Of course, texture and counterpoint are inseparable and my approach to playing is very much about counterpoint. The independence of individual voices and activities. There are many different timbres I use and often there are 3 or 4 parts I play at once, sometimes each with a different timbre. This is the texture. “Textural Counterpoint” I used as a suggestive term to convey, in my recent playing (SuperTexture was recorded about three years ago and, although still totally relevant, things have evolved), the use of non-pitched sound, like mechanical effects, static, the influence of birdsong, background noise, something that sounds “prepared” etc . I integrate these with more conventional elements such as harmony, pitched ostinatos or whatever. Perhaps “Non Pitched Counterpoint” would have been more correct to convey this part of my playing.

Your mention of “dismembered chords” I like a lot. Really, I’m trying to bring functional harmony into my playing, it’s sort of peeping through at the moment and I’m trying to integrate it with the “extra-musical” sounds, but harmony is very important for my future developments.

Another kind of response would be:

The planning of a piece, or all the possibilities before playing, is an area of real interest. I approach playing (this is solo playing) in various ways, although live performance and recording are different. Live, the environment and activities of people will affect me before playing, no matter what, there’s always a dialogue with an audience. At a performance recently a film was shown before I played and in the soundtrack there was a section with treated bird song and industrial sounds. I thought I’d use these to start with and told the audience. So I started with my approach to birdsong and added the industrial sounding stuff as I went along. Mostly I want what I play to have a shape, a feeling of structure so a listener can hopefully follow the music. Often I’ll think for a minute or two before sitting down to play, perhaps decide to start with very high frequencies perhaps, hard brittle sounds let’s say and slowly move to a middle register with something generally softer. Perhaps then move back to where I started. A beginning, middle and end. That’s just an example, handling all the many possibilities and thinking clearly is the challenge. That’s the challenge of improvising generally and being emotionally engaged too.

When recording, I’m mostly focused on what I’m working on at the moment, what I’m developing on a daily basis and of course you can stop and start, have a cup of tea, walk round a bit. The musical thinking will be the same, the content will be slightly different.

As I don’t plan “the music” in advance things come into play that are suggestive and I want to develop, so it’s useful if I can remember what I played 30 seconds ago. Repetition can be a helpful device. Sometimes it feels ok to just play with no prior thought at all. Track one on “SuperTexture” is a good example of this: play something, stop, play something different, repeat those two, then combine the two, and add a little tag to end. Making all this hang together can be a challenge, as I’m imagining as much of it before I play it as I can. Sometimes I can’t play what I imagine, it’s technically not possible at that moment, so as much flexibility in my technique and thinking is important. This approach continually throws up new ideas and now I find myself developing many things whilst away from the guitar.

What I’m playing now isn’t “free” improvisation in the older sense (I generally associate that with playing for the moment) but it is open to accommodate absolute, total improvisation or whatever terms people like to use.

I would like to ask you something about the way everything started. Did you grow up in a “music-oriented” family/environment or were they just indifferent (or even contrary) to you playing? And also, did you get any formal musical training before starting to work as a professional musician?

I grew up in a working class family where there were records and radio played, but no musical instruments in the home. The music was popular music of the day, no jazz or classical at all. My older brother was buying records and I can remember thinking The Shadows weren’t bad, guitar instrumentals, although to me (and I don’t know why) it all sounded a bit old fashioned. He also went to clubs and saw The Rolling Stones, The Yardbirds with Eric Clapton, Georgie Fame, those type of early British blues/R&B groups. He had a few American import singles which I knew were different from what I’d heard. I wasn’t playing the guitar at this point but when I did start a friend of my brother’s showed me one or two basic blues riffs and I thought it was just a wonder! I suppose I still do, particularly now understanding the origins and evolution and impact of that music.

Formal training? It wasn’t a consideration from my background and not at school either. Teach yourself, play with friends was the way. I’d got as far as Cream, Mick Hutchinson and once I realised there was a lot of different music out there, it was like a door opening. I taught myself to read music, learnt scales and I did take a few guitar lessons, just to make sure I was reading the music correctly. Nobody I knew could read music. The teacher was a session guitarist and he gave me some instruction on harmony for the guitar, towards a jazz style and I showed him how to bend strings and use pedals! I was very grateful for what he showed me and HOW he showed me, as he seemed to understand where I was coming from. Then it was into the world of guitar tutors/books. I had a very good Joe Pass book which I spent a lot of time with. The serious musical study came later.

Trace a sort of history of your main guitars, and talk about what you love more/less of their features as far as improvising is concerned

I suspect I haven’t really owned that many compared with a lot of guitarists. Around 12 I’d say. I tend to use just the one guitar exclusively but that guitar does take quite a beating! Even my very first, a Rossetti Lucky Seven, I spent time with, although the action was so high it should have made me a slide specialist!

Guitars hold a tremendous nostalgia for players - you know, you’re in your mid teens, looking at pictures of guitarists and guitars you like, fantasy stuff, so the look of a guitar is important, to me anyway. Then how it feels and looks being behind it, from the playing side. After all, you’re going to spend a lot of time with this creature! Sometimes a guitar can look great when looking at it, but wrong when holding it. Or the balance is wrong, neck too long or something. The neck is the deciding factor and the most crucial of all.

I bought a Gibson 330 after a Telecaster and I was making the transition from rock music to developing a more jazz influenced style, around 1970. I really wanted the Gibson 335, but couldn’t afford it. (I’d bought a little Fender Princeton amp too, but of course kept my old Marshall 50 watt head and 4 x 12 cab). Well made guitar, nicely cambered neck, thick frets, good tone and intonation. I’d always used fairly heavy strings (compared to a rock guitarist, not a jazz guitarist though) so a nice comfortable set up.

I used the 330 in commercial music and whatever I was playing up until around 1974/5, then I was offered a sunburst Stratocaster very cheaply. I didn’t really intend to use it but it made sense as a practical/functional guitar and as I was playing some pretty intense music the 330, being semi-acoustic, wasn’t really suitable. This was with The Acme Quartet and I was using the 50 watt Marshall, also recording with Bill Fay.

The Strat was fine initially, but as I developed a more contrapuntal and detailed style I found I couldn’t really attack a string and get the right resistance. The intonation wasn’t good and I couldn’t get the tone I wanted, which looking back was probably the start of my ear moving towards an acoustic guitar tone. So, got the 330 out the case, re-strung it with even heavier strings, started using a thumb pick. As money was in short supply I sold the Strat, unfortunately this left me fine for improvising but not having a suitable guitar for playing with Bill Fay. By the end of those recordings with The Fay Group I was reduced to using a Strat copy that sat around the studio. As Randy Newman said “money might not buy you love, but it can buy you…”.

Lack of money, lack of interest from the musical world and no doubt a little fear essentially brought to an end The Acme Quartet and Bill Fay Group. The better the music, the worse the reaction. I retreated too.

I walked past a junk shop and saw a Hoyer 12 string acoustic guitar hanging up. It crossed my mind that having a wider neck it could be converted into a 7 string, allowing pitches normally higher or lower on the neck now to fall under the left hand (I was still playing in the conventional left/right hand manner). I got the conversion, but didn’t like the idea of another string - dealing with 6 strings is plenty for the way I play, but it had opened my ear to the possibilities of acoustic guitar. I have to say here that I had NEVER liked the acoustic guitar and would NOT play it unless REALLY pushed into it, so it was quite a surprise for me. I bought a great handmade English guitar by Fylde. Not too big and very modest looking. and a new period of evolution started.

With the Fylde I started to develop the techniques and thinking for what I use now, polyrhythms, both hands covering the whole guitar etc. I wasn’t considering playing to an audience, or recording or anything else, just making music, but I worked very hard. I didn’t realise that I was creating a complete musical world, where I could hear every detail because it resonated well and I was sitting very close to the source of the sound. Everything produced by the hands, hand pressure and articulation. What I play now really does come out of playing the acoustic and I’ve come to see the “SuperTexture” album (and particularly my very recent recordings) and the “Rhythm Guitar” album as being strangely quite close to each other.
I wasn’t thinking of playing electric guitar and it was only the great and very greatly missed Trevor Manwaring (of Paratactile Records) who at the time had got a release for “Rhythm Guitar”, was urging me to play electric again. I was in a music shop with a friend and saw a Les Paul sitting there. Well, you know, it’s a nostalgia guitar! Eric Clapton, Peter Green, Kossoff. It kept looking at me, so I had a play, felt great, lovely neck AND it was only around £450. It was one of the early Epiphone/Gibsons that are now on the market, this must be around 1989/90 I think. Thought I’d play some blues on it or something for fun, but actually I used it, applying what I’d developed on the acoustic, for the first time in the studio whilst recording the “Rhythm Guitar” album.

So, the Les Paul has a great neck, is ordinary, very functional. Nostalgic. It’s the guitar I use now. I don’t use the tone or volume controls or pick-up selector switch. I’ve had to string it very lightly as heavier strings don’t produce enough sustain. I’ve had nothing customised. People ask if I tune differently, no, just conventional tuning. As with the acoustic, I produce the sound using hand articulation and the help of a volume pedal. And, a very ordinary amp tone that doesn’t get in the way. The amplification and magnification of the sound that I produce is really just a natural extension of electric guitar. Developing the suitable technique and language, to produce the music one wants, is the real issue.

Is the glissando - a main colour of your past work - still important as a sonic phenomenon for you, and how do you explain the psychological effect of glissando (in general) on the listeners?

Yes, it’s still there in my playing, it’s just a part of a wider musical expression now. When I’m developing something I try and integrate it with whatever else I play or how I think. This takes time and has to be natural/organic and not be forced. So there’s a point where I feel I might have overused something and have to let it go a bit , perhaps disappear from my playing for good. Who knows. This is a way of keeping what I play fresh and as I always make one thing grow out of another, also has a self generating effect on my development.

The use of glissando in itself isn’t anything really, just a slide on a string, a child playing a guitar will do it. It’s inherent in any stringed instrument. It doesn’t make the music of itself and often is seen more as an ornament, or perhaps, effect. This was partly what attracted me to it, the almost abstract quality and the fundamental/primitive element. Once again, I started developing this on acoustic guitar and at the time was getting rid of anything in my playing that wasn’t useful to me. I was left for a brief period with only a few sounds and pitches, which was really quite alarming. I was trying to bring some kind of obvious order to my improvising and I’ve always needed pitch in my playing. So, starting with a pitch and sliding to another pitch has a beginning and an end, consequently there can be a fixed duration and the possibility of playing in a time signature.

Looking at a length of just one string (between two points) and seeing the enormous amount of possibilities, was quite an eye opener, slightly overwhelming. Even just the velocity between the two intervals, let alone changing timbre and dynamic. A whole world. Then applying it to the six strings was quite demanding. The independence of the activities made me develop the two handed technique I have now and I’m still exploring the potential of each string, from nut to bridge, wound or plain string and what lays beneath the strings. The difference now is that I will generally use glissandi as a foil, with or against another activity. Double and triple bridging and such things are useful to these ends.

Motion became of interest to me, without being generated by the usual right hand attack, up and down strokes, tremolo etc . Glissandi supplied that. It could have real intensity too. Putting this with the stereo set-up (two amps, split signal and two volume pedals) and using both hands on the neck, I could create the illusion of not only shape, but movement in space. A depth of sound, particularly when using different pedals for each cabinet. When I’m playing with Aufgehoben (two drummers and electronics) I use glissandi a lot more, producing an undertow with the two drummers plus a lot of energy and motion. It works really well with the power and rawness of the group.

The psychological effects? People have told me that my use of glissandi, particularly with the stereo set-up, is very visual, you know, spirals, curves, waves, abstract painting. Sometimes it’s visual for me when playing or imagining the sound. Sometimes even just like shapes all over the fretboard, strands of sound. So I guess a visual aspect makes sense. The effect on the listener, besides possibly that of shape and motion could be like a gush or surge of sound (the first track on the “Glass Cage” album is a good example and a lot on my “FutureThoughtReveal” album). A similar effect could be conventionally produced by playing many pitches at speed, but with glissandi there is a fluidity and smoothness, particularly when there are different strands of sound, which I find has a very sensual effect.

Describe the birth, growth and ongoing life of your musical relationship with the two opposite poles in terms of collaboration: Bill Fay and Bernhard Gunter.

A lot to get in one small space, but I’ll try.

I first met Bill when we played the same show in London, 1976. Bill was performing solo, singing and playing piano and I was with the Acme Quartet. Bill obviously saw something in what we were doing and as I’ve said, the music we were creating was intense, a lot of improvising, although there was a pop sensibility buried there, as that was our background. Perhaps Bill picked up on that. We all knew the music of such singers/songwriters as David Ackles, Mike Brown, Randy Newman and also greatly admired Bill’s albums. Bill wasn’t the average pop singer, he’d been associated with the Ray Russell group, so for him to work with us wasn’t as strange as it might have seemed. After an initial play together at a rehearsal studio and all feeling good about the possibilities, we decided to play and rehearse regularly at my flat. We’d get together once or twice a week and started developing what was the most suitable material. Initially we wanted the Quartet (which was Bill Stratton drums, Rauf Galip bass and myself, which of course was a trio) to play as we did live, then work it in and around Bill’s songs. I’ve no doubt this would have worked and been quite sensational, but it became apparent that Bill’s songwriting had moved in a few different directions and it wouldn’t have been right for Bill or the music. Bill had a lot of songs and it’s true to say that we had a strong idea of what was Bill’s most powerful material and absolutely kept Bill in that direction. As Bill said of us “It wasn’t a question of no compromise, it didn’t get that far”. I guess integrity was the issue for all of us. Music as food for the soul was a given. We recorded a lot when rehearsing at my home, some mono, some quarter track, many of Bill’s songs, an evening of Bob Dylan songs. Getting the right songs and developing a group attitude, particularly towards arranging the material was very important. We didn’t want to do the obvious rock group stuff, you know, drums from start to finish, guitar solos. Everything was subservient to the needs of the song, but hopefully with a continuous group identity.

On the first songs we recorded, in a studio, I’m playing the guitar in a fairly straight forward manner, with possibly an extra overdub. As things developed I started using more volume pedal, often a glass slide and sometimes 3 guitars on each track. Trying to sound like a bowed instrument, bits of feedback, playing counter melodies to the vocal, some dissonances not normal to such songs. “Isles of sleep”, “Life”, “Strange Stairway” and “Spiritual Mansions” are a good example of this. The guitars in “Isles of Sleep” sounding backwards or like electronic crescendos playing with the cymbals, but achieved with just the volume pedal. Unconventional guitar harmonies in “Strange Stairway”. The song “Just a Moon” (on the Durtro CD) has a lot in it that I like. It was learnt that evening rehearsing, the recording is the first time it was played, no overdubs or mixing as it’s direct to mono. The guitar is quite exploratory with different things appearing and disappearing. Slide, chords, arpeggios, some attractive dissonances, mostly improvised, but just on one guitar, one take. A lovely song that we all liked, with great fuzz bass in it, but not quite what we were looking for, so it was left. So, no money to carry on recording, bad industry reaction to the recordings, the music was great but everything else was getting us deeper in a hole. Bill carried on doing the odd thing at my house, like the voice on “Our World” (in “Planet Earth Daytime”) where I’d written the music and he liked. Same with “Change is Near” and more. People’s lives change. Jump forward in time… Bill has kept writing songs and I’m still playing. We’re all still friends. In the last couple of years and through a chain of interested people we get the “Tomorrow, Tomorrow and Tomorrow” album released on David Tibet’s Durtro label, which was a perfect label. It was very enjoyable putting the album together, although I think there’s been a few misunderstandings over it. The album isn’t a re-issue but it’s not new like a recent recording, it was recorded many years ago. The idea of putting out-takes, demos etc at the end of a CD can be a bit dreary I think and I wanted to create an overview of what we were doing at the time. Creating a middle section between the main songs and using fragments, complete songs, pieces at low dynamic on one side of the stereo image (“down the corridor” as I thought of it) achieved a more suggestive and hopefully interesting glimpse for the listener. There’s no need to be conservative on these things, there’s no rules. Getting the opportunity to release a vinyl version of “Tomorrow” on Drag City allowed a few more songs to surface. Having limited access, for the first time, to the multi-tracks (although we do have all the multi-tracks) Doug Shearer and myself mixed a couple of pieces. “My Friend” was good to hear after all these years. Learnt in the studio, first time played, live no overdubs. I really like this song and the guitar solo, although at the time the solo would have appeared to me as too “easy”, a little obvious. On hearing it, Bill asked me if I’d put the solo on recently! We never played the song again. Last year Bill contributed a piece to my “SuperTexture” album and originally I said just talk over my guitar track in your kitchen or something, which would have been great as far as I’m concerned. Then I suggested the words from the “Pear Tree” song. He suggested speaking the lyrics from “Tomorrow” and eventually he played the piano themes from the album instead. His piano and my style of playing now really shouldn’t have worked, but the outcome was successful. And now…There have been six new Bill Fay songs chosen for The Bill Fay Group to record. Bill, Rauf Galip, Bill Stratton and myself. I’ll be incorporating much of what I play now into the songs, plus slide guitar, so it’s a challenge. The songs are quite extreme and may, possibly, be difficult for some lovers of Bill’s music. It’s never easy, but always worth the effort. We’re all excited about playing the new music, it seems to have been waiting really. Destiny.

The very start of my working with Bernhard goes back to meeting and becoming friends with Mark McLaren and Doug Shearer. They saw the connection with my playing and contemporary electronics. They were very encouraging and I’ve really appreciated their knowledge, time and enthusiasm. Also, they had the Sijis label along with Scott Taylor and Jon Hayes. Once we’d agreed on doing the “SuperTexture” album on Sijis, artists were invited to contribute treatments and interpretations of my solo guitar work and Bernhard contributed a piece.

We established a good rapport by email and decided to send each other music to work on. Bernhard sent me some solo pieces playing shakuhachi or esraj (an Indian stringed instrument which Bernhard struck in a percussive manner). I sent him solo electric guitar recordings. I isolated short sections of Bernhard’s music and sometimes repeated them, in one case four times, creating little structures. Six pieces in all and then I overdubbed one guitar. I sent these “Six Pieces” to Bernhard and he added one or two clarinets. I tend to think of these pieces as a type of chamber music and feel they are very idiosyncratic. The solo guitar I sent Bernhard he used and created a piece just over 20 minutes long, with field recordings and more. Michael Vorfeld guests as well and sounds very good. We then met up in London, recorded and I’ve been to Germany to record. We gave ourselves the name Klangstaub , played our first performance last November in London for The Wire magazine and formed our label Klangstaub Musik .The fruits of these recordings are now available.

Since our first “postal” recordings we’ve developed a definite style. People seemed to be surprised that we were working together, as we were perceived as being musical opposites. That’s where the interest lies I think. Also, we get on very well, there’s no competition and plenty of discussion about what we’re doing. I create a lot of activity in my playing and Bernhard lets things stretch out more. He’s playing trumpet, clarinet, trying out different instruments and developing these with loops, often very long loops. I’m loop free and using just a volume pedal. Very simple. There’s a noticeable change in the pace of the music from our first duo recordings in London and to my recent and second visit to Germany. Things are spreading out. This is well documented on the “Diary” 1 and 2 recordings we’ve issued, the music being in chronological order to show this.

We don’t have any preconceived idea before playing a piece and it is totally improvised. However, the music is starting to sound more compositional and as the results are fairly low key and relaxed, creating it can be quite a knife edge experience. Everything is well defined and anything incongruous really does stand out. We’re also playing at a low dynamic, but within that, the dynamic range is very wide. The smallest gesture really does have to be considered. Fortunately, Bernhard and myself have retained our own styles and there’s a third “person” developing out of this. We’re pleased with the results so far, but it’s early days, so we’re looking forward to some intriguing and unclassifiable music.

Do you feel somehow connected with visual arts and, in that sense, have you ever tried to play something you had pictured in advance in your mind? On the other hand, have you ever improvised in parallel with other artistic forms such as dance or video?

Yes, the visual arts have a big impact on me, probably as much as music these days. This would be mainly painting and more recently sculpture. Not just contemporary but a broad view. Duccio, Cimabue, Medieval perception and such things. Not that I’ve any interest in being a painter, I just find myself reading about and looking at painting as much as I would listening to other peoples music. As I’ve no idea what it’s like to paint in a serious manner or have a real appreciation of the subtleties of using paint, I can get excited by the paintings from a more neutral position. I don’t bring to looking at a painting what I would bring to listening to music, less real insight you might say. I’m less critical, more objective. As I’ve become more interested in the processes at work in my playing, I’ve found it stimulating to read about and imagine the painters process. Naturally there are many parallels with music : texture, the blending of colours, line, the depth of image , energy or dynamic, even the artificiality or illusion of an image (similar to the illusion that it’s music on a recording). Depth of sound and illusion are sort of tapping away in the back of my head for awhile now. I’ve used the illusion of moving sound in space with my stereo set-up and as I’m feeling some awareness for sculpture, I’m thinking of employing the parallax, but applied to music: the same sounds but heard from different positions in space. I’m developing something similar with just one amp now, but more about distant sound, depth, foreground and background, perhaps activities sounding unconnected. Film and dissolves, that’s something I’m using now as a stimulus. Crossfades. This could go on!

An example of picturing something in advance would be a couple of pieces from my “Forgotten Room with Chairs” album. I was in the park with my niece and she was on a swing and I watched the motion of the swing as it gathered momentum. The two directions of the swing made me think of stereo, left and right and as it got faster it got higher and took longer to get back to the central starting point, this could be pitch and duration. I didn’t work on this before playing in the studio and I recorded three versions. The first is just establishing slides up and down the neck (foolishly I didn’t put this on the album, I would now) and moving from left to right between the two amps by using the volume pedals. This also established that the piece was in triple time. The second take I added harmony and started extending lower notes to one side of the stereo image and higher ones to the other, like the swings developing momentum. To the third take I created a middle section and more independence of parts. These were recorded with short breaks between takes so there was a quick development. I titled it “Swing”.

It’s worth pointing out that some of these techniques are quite delicate to play, so when I perform with Aufgehoben , being an aggressive, very loud group, it’s quite a challenge to really make these things cut through. A lot to control at high volume.

Working with people from other disciplines. I really enjoy this. Visually aware people often connect with what I do, even if there’s no particular understanding of the music on their part. As I’ve said, there’s a basic primitive aspect to my playing. In the last couple of years my recorded guitar has been used notably by the performance artist Krzysztof Zarebski, who gave a solo show at the Chelsea Art Museum NYC, my playing provided all the background. Also, net and video artist Sachiko Hayashi who’s interactive screen installation “Flurry”, was at The National Museum of Science and Technology Stockholm and also the Kulturhuset Stockholm. This was on the subject of snow, which I recorded specifically for.

I did a performance at the Gallerie Satellite in Paris with Krzysztof and Richard Piegza. This involved them rolling many different objects around the space and recording tape being physically manipulated in many complex and strange ways. A very visual, rhythmic experience. I played solo and tried to mirror and also add to what was happening.

How would you place and compare your playing style in the historic context of English improvising guitarists such as Derek Bailey, Fred Frith, John Russell, Roger Smith and who, if any, among these names or others constituted a point of interest for you as far as developing a unique sound is concerned?

Other guitarists stopped being an influence on my playing around 1976/7. Listening to composers like Ligeti, the string writing of Xenakis, Scelsi, particularly his fourth string quartet, Aldo Clementi, became of interest. I’d say that the influence on me from English improvising guitarists has been minimal. What I did relate to, and still do, were some of the older players, not just guitarists, and their uncompromising, hard core attitude. Or at least that’s how I perceived their attitude. Looking closely at what you do and why you do it and then living with it and committing to it. That’s valuable to me. Integrating it into your life and then making connections with everything that surrounds your life. But you know, you listen and consider and learn. I’d happily listen, at any time, to the players you’ve mentioned. I like what they do. Historically. As I’ve said, I wanted a more conscious continuity in my music and didn’t find that so readily in the earlier freer improvisers or more recent improvisers, so perhaps that’s what I’m building on and bringing to contemporary improvising. Like it sounds less improvised than it really is.

Have you ever been interested in building - or at least designing - your own instruments à la Hans Reichel in order to add colours to your palette?

I’m a bit of a purist when it comes to this. I just like the six strings and the challenge of working with that. There’s so much there, so much to be had from the conventional. I suppose that’s why I’m producing such a variety of sound using only my hands. Also, I’ve always been very conscious about novelty in music, something different for its own sake. Wanting to be “weird” or whatever. But, it’s what a person needs to do, for whatever reasons. Who knows where it goes. At the moment I do seem to be wearing out parts of my guitar by using a lot of different hand pressures, mostly the area around the pick- ups. So maybe there is a case for a re-build.

In a Wire interview, you declared “I’d be playing even if nobody heard me”. Why the satisfaction of finding a way to turn the instrument upside down can’t be limited to our own self? What is the element in a recording that causes you to affirm “I’m releasing this stuff?”

For me, playing the guitar is such a great thing and I’m very happy with the way my playing has and is developing. The involvement, on a daily basis, is very rewarding, like a dialogue with yourself. Beyond music. Telling the world about it is a natural desire and we all like to be appreciated, but it’s like that thing about the book, does it exist if only the author has read it? Well of course it does. A creative passion that exists in private is very exciting I think. It’s not always necessary to conquer the world. But, as most working musicians in non mainstream areas, I’d like to be playing live more, in generally better circumstances, for more money. No doubt. But yes, I’d still be playing if nobody heard me.

At the moment I’m choosing pieces for a new solo album. Why choose one piece over another? Generally it would be how good the musical content is, how the piece hangs together as a whole. It could be a short piece that reveals a technical aspect I’m working on, perhaps something that is just full of energy, but mostly the content decides. There’s an emotional reaction that I need when listening and choosing, I sort of find myself physically moved, like a very small electrical charge. This is difficult to explain. One piece I kept considering is technically very good and is moving towards Nancarrow’s player piano, the very intense speeded up end of that music. It was demanding to play and musically worked well, but the touch I’ve employed just isn’t satisfactory. No matter how much I listen to it, it isn’t right. So, that can go in the bin, but I’ve learnt a lot about touch from listening to this piece.

What is your “secret dream” as an artist, as far as playing with someone you really admire or realizing an apparently impossible project is concerned?

I have a sophisticated scoring programme and my aim is to write orchestral music and integrate my guitar playing. I hope to realise this, but it has been a dream for a long time. I guess there are people I don’t know yet, and people I don’t know well enough, young or old, whom it would be good to work with. I don’t limit myself to any area of music (as I think my musical history shows). It’s the 21st century after all. How about Bob Dylan doing spoken word over my guitar?