Experimental slide guitar may not be at the forefront of everyone’s musical radar but London based Geiger von Müller seems to be on a mission to correct things. With a string of critically acclaimed albums behind him and, a new one recently released, Paul Scott-Bates talks Jimi Hendrix, space travel and Lego with the upcoming musician.
LTW: You released your third album Slide Sonatas I in August and the second single from it, Space Digger #2, is fresh on the shelves. How does it all tie in with your previous releases? Will there be a Slide Sonatas II?
GMV: Haha, yes Slide Sonatas II. is in the pipeline! The new single and video are a pretty direct sequel to the previous one, Space Digger #1, not just in title but sonically and visually as well. Album-wise, you know, it’s always the same really, just my guitar and my silly self. Just fiddling with ideas, I mean what else can you do with an acoustic axe other than strumming some chords campfire style? In fact, you can do loads. So I’m exploring avenues, new textures. I chuck everything in the mix from rock, psych, folk, classical, what have you, even some hip-hop scratches. Delicate frills here, loud bottom end there, you know. But I mean it’s based on a blues vibe, obviously, as that’s what essentially the slide sound is. For a while I thought I was simply playing the country blues, just with a slight difference. But then folks started to call it ‘experimental’. I said, okay, whatever. I’m not a great fan of pigeonholing music.
So how do you feel about the ‘experimental’ tag?
Too me it sounds cool. It means innovation. Not sure though how folks out there interpret the term. Think it’s a widespread problem when they consider it a standalone genre. These days anything innovative can be seen as outsider art. Irrespective of their basic genres, such releases are tossed into the experimental category which has all the good weird stuff in it. Meaning, ‘normal’ music listeners don’t need to care about it, it’s for weirdos only. That’s a big mess. It means that ‘normal’ folks never hear innovative stuff within their favourite genres. They end up listening to bland clichéd stuff 24-7, or I don’t know. Can you imagine the same happening in Hendrix’s time, or even Sgt Peppers? Or I could probably say, Tchaikovsky, Liszt and so on.
You’ve been known to collaborate with experimental noise-electro artists.
Actually, new single Space Digger #2 has A and B sides, like in good old times. The B-side is a remix for my tune Blue Moon Frequency #4. The perpetrator is phenomenal UK noise art extremist Xqui. He gave it an elegant touch – nothing extreme this time. We’ve been successful in mashing noise-electro with roots-blues-acoustic, I think it’s quite a feat in itself. We’ve collaborated on several releases, independent radio DJs dig this new sound. I’ve worked with other noise-electro producers as well, Elizabeth Joan Kelly from New Orleans, also Pelso from London.
Your new visuals involve lots of Lego. How has that come about?
The short answer is, I don’t know. It just came as an idea and I liked it. There had been much 3D cgi in my visuals and this retro sci-fi Legoland vibe feels like a healthy new direction. I think the space theme goes well with the slide sound, in general. It also provides an abstract framework for the underlying messages that I would put into the lyrics otherwise. Look at the times we live in! I’ve always favoured anti-war protest elements in the visuals. Implicit but unambiguous. If you watch closely or if you read the inscriptions it will all come together. Now, the choice for this Legoland Classic period is deliberate and vid director Attila Riegler presented some rad ideas. When Lego started their space line, in these initial classic years there was no war or conflict motif, no weapons included in the sets. It was all about exploration. This might sound like a marginal detail but I believe in it. Give kids guns to play with and they’ll end up shooting their neighbours on order. Give them exploration and they’ll end up building psychedelic spacecraft to fly to Jupiter and back.
The Geiger von Müller website is here. You can follow on Twitter here and Facebook here, more on Bandcamp here.
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All words by Paul Scott-Bates. More of Paul’s writing on Louder Than War can be found at his author’s archive. Paul’s website is hiapop and you can follow him on Twitter as @hiapop, and on Facebook here.
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This is brilliant.
Just ordered the cd!