Giacomo Fiore in Joshua Tree

I have been following the work of guitarist Giacomo Fiore since his student days at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music (SFCM). He graduated in the class of 2009. In November of 2016 he returned to SFCM to present a program entitled Sixty Years and Counting, which reviewed the role of the electric guitar among “serious” composers, such as Morton Feldman, Christian Wolff, and (on the other side of the “pond”) Tristan Murail.

Cover design for the album being discussed (from its Bandcamp Web page)

A little over a year ago, Fiore enjoyed a week-long residency at Lou Harrison House, which is located in Joshua Tree. Rather than stay indoors, Fiore decided to spend his time in Joshua Tree National Park. That experience would lead to the creation of a new album, which will be released by Other Minds one week from today. For those that cannot wait, Bandcamp has created a Web page for the album to pre-order both the compact disc and the digital download versions. The full title of the album is Lost Horse Wash Drone: Music for Guitar and Electronics.

For Fiore’s venture into Joshua Tree National Park, he brought an electric guitar, a resophonic guitar (based on the design of the instrument that Lou Harrison invented for Scenes from Nek Chand, enhancing the sounds of the plucked strings with resonating overtones), and (of course) recording equipment. Fiore’s intention was to blend the sounds of his instruments with the natural sounds of the Park. The full extend of those sounds was captured by placing microphones within the body of his guitars. The guitar strings themselves were tuned according to just intonation, in which intervals are based on integer ratios.

Those that have followed this site for some time probably know that I have long been interested in the impact of those integer ratios as an alternative to the “irrational” (in the mathematical sense) intervals that define the equal-tempered chromatic scale. I have listened to enough of Harrison’s music to have been perfectly comfortable with the intervals that Fiore explored during his Joshua Tree visit. I could also appreciate the value of his “background” recordings of “natural” sounds from sources other than those of his instruments (such as wind).

One cannot venture into a desert without appreciating the extent to which one is surrounded by quietude. (Fortunately, we do not have to put up with Peter O’Toole singing his way through Lawrence of Arabia!) Thus, at least to some extent, Fiore’s undertaking could not be other than intrusive. On the other hand, no one is around to feel intruded upon (except for coyotes and prairie dogs); so all that really matters is that, having captured his sounds, Fiore had the good sense to leave things as he found them.

Once the sounds have been captured, “the rest is silence” (Hamlet’s final words to Horatio). However, that silence is broken by editing and playback. Rather than silence, “the rest” is what we can now encounter on the new Lost Horse Wash Drone album! Having now listened to that album several times, I find that there is much to enjoy in the interplay among instrumental sounds, natural sounds, and products of imaginative audio editing.