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Inventions for Broken & Prepared Guitar

by Max Davies

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1.
Invention 1 02:49
2.
Invention 2 02:10
3.
Invention 3 04:05
4.
Invention 4 01:41
5.
Invention 5 03:03
6.
Invention 6 02:41
7.
Invention 7 01:26
8.
Invention 8 02:31
9.
Invention 9 05:05

about

On Inventions for Prepared & Broken Guitar

How does one work with what is broken? With so many seemingly dysfunctional things in the world, (government, environment, communication, bureaucracy, technology, medicine, arts, education, etc) how do we proceed?

The past several years have brought this challenge to the fore in many different ways for so many people, myself included. How do we make art when things in the world seem so insurmountably broken? The answer to this question is rooted in how we work with what is.

How do we work with what is? For me, an answer came in the form of working intentionally with some of the broken guitars that I have. I took several that are technically broken and made music with them. Little sonic landscapes that I affectionately call inventions.

These broken instruments, while not in pieces, were in various states of disrepair: warped and cracked necks and bodies, worn out/ cheap tuners that don’t stay in tune well, lifting bridges, saddles that are out of intonation, impossibly high string action, etc. All the kind of stuff that makes guitarists want to throw these kind of instruments into the trash and go buy something new, in search of the “perfect sound”—whatever that is.

However, these instruments still technically make sound, and this is an important distinction to make. Important because, even though they aren’t up to professional standards, they still contain the germ of creative possibility. Or to put it another way, they still “sing”. They provide the perfect broken slate from which to begin exploring the question; How do I work with what is? Even if what is, happens to be broken.

It was under these auspices that I set out on my "Inventions For Broken & Prepared Guitar" and began to think of the instruments on their own terms, that is to say, on the terms that each particular instrument might operate under. This led me into the realm of prepared treatments for the guitar, a realm in which I had dabbled in before, but had never held as an overarching dictum in composition.

I began with a few “rules” as I started recording these nine pieces. Everything had to come from the guitar. No synths, drums, keyboards, voices, or any other kind of instrumentation were used in the recording of these songs. And while I did overdub and edit pieces a bit as needed, the overall presentation is one that generally used complete takes and then, if necessary, did some tweaks for arrangement, length, or timing.

I only used equalization, compression and reverb/ mild delay, and I mostly stuck to this with a couple of small exceptions during mixing and mastering. Regardless, these limitations provided a great opportunity to explore the guitar in a way which eschewed some of the pop/ rock conventions, and invited more atmospheric, auditory landscapes to take shape.

I began exploring the musical potential of these instruments by treating them with various objects wedged between, on and under the strings: paperclips, pencils, a small stick, alligator clips, screwdrivers, bits of foam, slides, etc. I also made use of a violin bow, and an E-Bow. Additionally, I used percussion mallets, and my hands and fingers to elicit percussive sounds from the guitars.

Non-standard tuning was a vital aspect to making this music, and emphasized a modal flavor, along with droning pedal notes. I exploited harmonics and various manipulations of the overtones to help generate the songs. And while not everything worked, most of it did, and much of it ended up on the recordings.

Everything you hear on these tracks is played on a guitar. It is an unabashed collection of guitar recordings for the guitar’s sake. It is all guitar all the way. They are an attempt to turn shit into gold, in the alchemical sense; solve et coagula in action.

While these songs were tracked on a digital system in my home studio, the tracks were also given a special field trip “outside the box” courtesy of Dave O’Dell (A.K.A: Davey Diamonds). Dave and I ran the nine songs through a Trident TSM console and some outboard effects (including an EMT plate reverb, Eventide H10, and an API 2500 stereo buss compressor) at Animal Lane Studio in Lyons, Colorado in the Fall of 2021. We also blended some mixes through a Proco RAT distortion pedal, some Moog pedals and re-amped several of the mixes through a trifecta of tube amps (an older 4x12” Hiwatt, a Vega, and a SIlvertone 1472). Doing this enabled me to hear the tracks in a different way, and widen and warm things up a bit. I then refolded those mixes back into mine in the digital realm. Additionally, all of the master buss stereo tracks were bounced out to a Tascam 424 cassette 4 track recorder for a lo-fi tape saturation for added warmth, and then re-imported into the digital world for finalizing.

The mastering process proved to be the hardest piece of the puzzle. These pieces were extremely resistant to modern conventions in regard to loudness levels, compressors, limiters and the like. They just wouldn't cooperate at higher levels and preferred a quieter place to reside. Ultimately, I came to the decision that these songs were to be treated like a classical recording in regard to dynamic range, and are well below the standard of -14 (integrated) LUFS. They are quiet compared to most modern pop/ rock or electronic music, and are (like most things) best listened to on a proper set of speakers or headphones.

Inventions for Prepared & Broken Guitar is in no uncertain terms, a series of aural love-letters between me and the instrument. An instrument which I have obsessively had a relationship with for nearly 30 years in one way or another.

In the process of exploring that relationship, something greater than myself and these base forms of cheap, broken guitars manifested. Moreover, these tracks are tangible evidence of how to work with what is broken. Hopefully, these pieces will invite listeners to reevaluate how we relate to things that are seemingly broken in our lives. How do we find value in things which ostensibly do not fully function? Do we give into modern materialistic tropes of disposability and just discard things? Or do we look (and listen) more deeply, more quietly, and try to not only salvage things, but make them more beautiful, regardless of their limitations, or what society thinks?

The process of making these recordings has changed me, or at least helped rearrange my worldview in such a way as to feel less oppressed by the seeming brokenness of the world. It has helped me to modulate the awful existential doldrums that I feel the world has been subjected to recently. Doing this album has provided a working model from which to proceed onward creatively.

These songs were made to fly in the face of entropy and rust. They are antidotes to the antinomies of life, and hopefully, allow for you to appreciate that in the face of “brokenness” there is still the potential for beauty and creation, and that there are still ample opportunities to rise.

credits

released December 20, 2021

All songs written and performed by Max Davies.
Recorded and mixed at the Bas Couture Bunker in Boulder, Colorado, throughout 2020 and 2021.
Additional engineering and mixing by Dave O'Dell at Animal Lane Studios, Lyons, Colorado.
Artwerk by Max Davies & Jonas Leuenberger with a debt owed to Aleister Crowley's Snowdrops From A Curate's Garden.
Published by Gampo Magick ASCAP

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Max Davies

Songwriter, guitarist and producer. Max Davies has been featured in: Artforum; Guitar World & Guitarist magazines; Centre Pompidou, the American College Dance Festival, Naropa University, and on numerous albums and films. He has worked with Thurston Moore, Anne Waldman, Lydia Lunch, CA Conrad, Toni Oswald, Clark Coolidge, Cecilia Vicuna, Eleni Sikelianos Gregory Alan Isakov, and more. ... more

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