Paul Dresher / Was Re: essential loop recordings

[ArsOcarina@aol.com]

Dave,

In a message dated 6/26/03 10:45:24 AM, improv@peak.org writes:

>Paul Dresher and Ned Rothenberg: Opposites Attract, New World Records 
>1991: I'm not sure how essential this is on the larger scale, since I 
>seem to be the only person to have ever bought this record, but it 
>was certainly a huge inspiration to me. Paul Dresher has done a lot 
>of work with tape-based looping systems.

I'm a big Dresher fan too. I dug his "Liquid and Stellar Music" (1984). 
I had the great privilege of witnessing Paul do this mucic live in the 
small auditorium of the Santa Barbara Museum of Art. Hs method 
of looping (at the time) was strictly tape-based -- but still startling 
nontheless. He employed a single 8-track reel-to-reel machine with 
long adjustable "arms" that had pullies on them to accomodate long 
tape loops of varying lengths. He had also constructed a "bank" of 
foot pedals (looking much like an organ player's bass pedals, but 
obviously home-made) that controlled the recording volume on each 
of the 8 tracks of the recorder. These he would use to control the 
input from his guitar. While his music had a lot in comon (in my thinking) 
to groups like Tangerine Dream and Ashra (mostly because of the 
repetitive aspect) it was enthralling to see one person "do it all" 
live -- and so well too. Though it was stricly guitar-bassed, it was 
totally un Fripp-like. His playing was very similar to what I've heard 
of Mattias Grob's -- very fluid, clean and melodic. One of the really 
neat tricks he would do involved his post-loop processing through an 
early Eventide Harmonizer. Somehow (this was pre-MIDI, I believe), 
he was able to, at certain points, change the pitch of his loops 
(without changing the tempo) by pressing keys on a small, one-octave 
keyboard. This was the first time I'd heard (or seen) anyone do that.

Best,

tEd ® kiLLiAn

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