Octal: Book Two

This is the second volume of Elliott Sharp’s project “Octal”, realized on the 8-string guitarbass prototype built for him by Saul Koll. And again, it’s a solo album of purely digital music “in that my digits are the sole method of sound-production: no plectra are used, only fingers”, as we read in the liner notes written by the notorious New York composer, conceptualist, and musician. After finding new ways for the rock format, after creating visionary new classical music for string quartet and orchestra, after stretching electronic dance music, after reframing the Delta blues model, after abstract electronica, after improvising freely with the most diverse musicians of the world, from Nusrat Fateh Ali-Khan to Michiyo Yagi to Frances-Marie Uitti, and after interpreting Thelonious Monk without the bebop cliches, Sharp is again in an exploratory mood. Focused in the investigation of a very special instrument, an electro-acoustic guitar/bass, he searches for sounds and develops extended techniques having science as an inspiration, and especially the thinking of physicist and cosmologist Lisa Randall about post-quantum theories. Don’t be frightened! Like “Octal: Book One”, the results aren’t dry and boring, but totally the inverse: physical, visceral, and very musical! Something new and incredible happens all the time, and if the music won’t surprise you (one big improbability), Elliott Sharp’s dexterity will. Sometimes, what you hear seems like he’s playing piano with the strings, or using the guitar as a synthesizer, creating the most unexpected soundscapes, making sounds unlike any heard from a guitar. And all without any effects units or processors, only acrobatic hands, sensitive spirit and a hyper-creative mind.