Re: essential loop recordings

[Andre LaFosse <altruist@earthlink.net>]

Hello Terry,

Terry Blankenship wrote:

> I think my Terry Blankenship - Entering The Silence CD
> was unique for 1985, and my Trance Godz - Trance World
> CD from 2000 used looping in a way that no one had did
> before.

Could I ask you to expand on this, and provide some details as to what
you really feel most strongly are the unique aspects about them?

I've listened to the three Trance Godz tracks on your mp3.com page, and
they're very well produced and executed.  But to my ears, the looping
content is basically e-bowed ambient guitar pads that are swirling
around some sequenced rhythm tracks.  

Again, it sounds really good - I'm not trying to knock your stuff at all
- but the concept of using ambient guitar loops over dance rhythms has
been going on for a very long time.  Mr. Fripp himself did that with a
techno act called the Orb in the mid-'90s, Michael Brook was doing live
guitar looping with sequences around the turn of the decade (maybe the
late '80s), Torn did it on the mid-'90s CMP solo records and the
Splattercell album which was finished in '99 and released in 2000, and
Fripp even had a late-'70s thing called "discotronics" that was about
putting his tape loops over dance rhythms.  This is all just to name a
few, of course...

So, could you go into some detail as to what sets the Trance Godz
recordings apart in terms of using looping in an unprecendented manner?

I haven't heard your 1985 album, but here again, could you offer some
details as to what makes it unique for its time, particularly in
relation to other loopists from that era like Pauline Oliveros, Gary
Hall, Matthias Grob, David Torn, Paul Dresher, or Bill Frisell?

Best,

--Andre LaFosse
The Echoplex Analysis Pages:
http://www.altruistmusic.com/EDP