Cutlers Scale

British guitarist Keith Rowe, a member of AMM, is one of the improvisors who has most contributed to the definition of a new vocabulary for the guitar. Or, better, for the "tabletop" guitar, a guitar plugged into the cacophony of the "perfectly ordinary reality" (usually, a barrage of radios and electronic devices). He has played the guitar virtually in every possible manner and with every possible tool, to the point that the guitar has become a mere object that can be used to produce unusual sounds. His body of work, that references abstract painting, Dada, Edgar Varese and John Cage, is the quintessence of "noise" guitar music. The chaotic, cryptic and apparently meaningless "guitar solos" of A Dimension of Perfectly Ordinary Reality (Matchless, 1990) are his aesthetic manifesto. It would take ten years for Rowe to follow it up with another solo album: Harsh (Gross, 2000), three improvisations recorded in a garage (again, for tabletop-guitar and electronics). In between those two solo albums, Rowe engaged in all sorts of collaborations, from the humble Rowe/ Siwula/ Miano (RSM, 1996), an improvised jam with saxophonist Blaise Siwula and pianist Tonino Miano, to the majestic Dial: Log-rhythms (Matchless, 1999) with saxophonist Jeffrey Morgan. But the main experience of the period, besides AMM, was the Music In Movement Electronic Orchestra (MIMEO), an ensemble of of electronic improvisers that included Peter "Pita" Rehberg, Gert-Jan Prins, Thomas Lehn, Christian Fennesz, Marcus Schmickler, Kaffe Matthews, Rafael Toral, etc. They released several documents of their activity: MIMEO (Perdition Plastics, 1998), recorded in 1997, Queue (Gross, 1999), the double-disc Electric Chair + Table (Gross, 2000), and The Hands Of Caravaggio (Erstwhile, 2002) with John Tilbury. The new millenium saw Rowe multiply his collaborations: The World Turned Upside Down (Erstwhile, 2000) with Guenter Mueller and Taku Sugimoto; Maschinelle + Strategeme (Ritornell, 2000) with Pimmon, Peter "Pita" Rehberg and Christian Fennesz; Afternoon Tea (Ritornell, 2000), which documents two improvisations with Paul Gough (Pimmon), Oren Ambarchi, Peter Rehberg (Pita) and Christian Fennesz; N:Q (Fibrr, 2000), a new quartet with Jean Chevalier and Formanex's saxophonist Christophe Havard and percussionist Julien Ottavi; Dark Rags (Potlatch, 2001) with Evan Parker; Grain (Zarek, 2002) with percussionist Burkhard Beins; the mediocre Weather Sky (Erstwhile, 2002) with Toshimaru Nakamura; etc. One of Rowe's most ambitious projects, Rabbit Run (Erstwhile, 2002), contains the 41-minute namesake improvisation with Thomas Lehn on analogue synthesizer, and Marcus Schmickler on digital synthesizer and computer (both members of MIMEO), and 42 fragments extracted from it that can be played in any order and combination. It was followed by Thumb (Gross, 2003), a collaboration with Oren Ambarchi, Sachiko M, Otomo Yoshihide, Rob Avenaim, and the two-disc Duos for Doris (Erstwhile, 2003) with AMM's pianist John Tilbury, one of his most lyrical works. A View From The Window (Erstwhile, 2004) was a collaboration with Dorner and Hautzinger.