Choice-Chase

This electric guitar, electric (and acoustic) cello, and percussion date is a breath of fresh air when it comes to guitar records. This is Stephan Wittwer's approach to the instrument, as a percussion and tone device takes all the problematic equations of whether he can play or not out of the air and the music. Listening to him interact with drummer Paul Lovens and cellist Martin Schütz proves he can play in a manner that not many can or would aspire to. His approach to the guitar is one that sees the instrument not so much as a solo device, but as an integrative one where by using its tonalities and frequencies in the right way, other instruments may be brought into the fray tonally as well as dynamically. The first three-part suite, "Choice," is an establishment of this, as Wittwer moves through various aspects of feedback microtonalities and opens the entire space up to Schütz, who seesaws across the base tones, creating a larger canvas for the percussion to anchor both sets of tonal fields to one another. If it sounds academic, it's anything but — it's an anarchic blast. It's rock & roll without verses, structure, choruses, or melody. On the second suite, the five-part "Waidwund," the trio gets an opportunity to explore the dangerous nature of power chords and Lovens gets to let loose and does, calling fire from the heavens down on the volume assault in a prayer to make it all louder. Certainly there are quiet passages where texture and balance pursue various light bodies in a field of sacred language. But before it becomes sacred, the anger and aggression come in with gale force and bring it all back home to hell where it belongs. This is fantastic.