The hardcore guitar hero and producer discusses the band's new LP, The Dusk in Us—as well as his new GodCity instrument and pedal outfit.
“It took a long time for me to even identify as a guitar player,” says Kurt Ballou. “For me, it’s so much more about doing what it takes to get the song across.” An unexpected statement from the mouth of a player as influential—not to mention athletic—as Converge’s axeman and producer. However, it’s certainly one that underlines the all-for-one, hardcore-punk ethos that’s fueled the band’s 25-year career. There’s some humble irony in his statement, too, considering Ballou’s personal business cards literally double as a PCB (printed circuit board) for a build-your-own distortion pedal which he helped design. Ballou and Converge bassist, Nate Newton, also recently unveiled a YouTube channel specifically for gear reviews called“demovids.”
From seminal albums like Jane Doe and You Fail Me to evolved late-career masterworks like All We Love We Leave Behind, Converge’s approach has always been fearless. The band’s music showed that the metal-tinged hardcore concept has space for abstraction, textural intrigue, and emotional depth. “None of us are really afraid of taking risks musically at this point,” says Newton. “We’re just doing what we want to do and writing the records we want to hear.” This approach keeps Converge from falling prey to the stagnancy that plagues so many of its peers. While the Boston-bred, metallic-hardcore band’s sound is undeniably a sum of its parts—reliant as much on Newton’s substantially punishing bass work, drummer Ben Koller’s imaginative and dexterous drumming, and frontman Jacob Bannon’s poetic sensibilities and inimitable mixture of pained barks and post-punk-informed monologues—there’s no minimizing the importance Ballou’s guitar plays within that recipe.
Armed with a singular approach to the instrument that flexes with shades of Greg Ginn’s simplicity and aggression, Slayer-informed dissonance and calisthenics, a lethal rhythmic sense, and textured, effects-heavy ambience, Ballou’s unique style boils down his disparate influences to reach far beyond the typical palette of tones and ideas heavy metal and hardcore players often rely upon. Throughout Converge’s discography, Ballou has displayed what’s possible for heavy players who seek something beyond bludgeoning riffs—though there’s no shortage of those within his oeuvre, either. Ballou’s avant-garde sense of phrasing, use of oddball tunings, and penchant for unexpected equipment (like Rickenbackers fitted with EMGs and vintage Marshall 8x10 cabs) have made the man a revolutionary player amid a sea of guitarists chugging away in dropped tunings through Peavey 5150s. And all of this is to say nothing of the staggering number of credits Ballou has earned as a taste-making producer and engineer at his GodCity Studio, shaping the records of countless cutting-edge artists that run the gamut of genres from High on Fire to Chelsea Wolfe.
With their ninth studio release, The Dusk in Us, Converge has issued yet another statement of its potency as an increasingly artistically minded, viscerally intense, and dynamic band. Tracked and produced by Ballou at GodCity, much of the guitar on The Dusk in Us was performed on custom guitars the restless Renaissance man has been building under the GodCity Instruments moniker, with tones further tweaked by prototype pedals he’s been tinkering with for the past year. PG sought an audience with Ballou during the first leg of the band’s current tour to get inside his head and discuss the mountains of gear used on the new album, talk about his new venture as a guitar and pedal manufacturer, and to glean some pearls of wisdom from a player and producer who has quietly helped reshape the heavy music landscape of the past two decades.
On their 9th studio album, The Dusk in Us, Converge didn’t work independently at all. Everything was worked out collaboratively as a team in GodCity Studio.
What’s the story with your guitar and pedal company, GodCity Instruments? I see a lot of new gear on your social media. Have you decided to expand into full production any time soon?
GCI is a labor of love and it’s something that I’m passionate about, but it’s also something that I presently consider my hobby. I’ve come to find out that trying to manufacture something in the United States requires a lot of time and effort and money, and I would essentially need to stop my recording business if I wanted to really dive into making GCI what I want it to be. I’m continuing to prototype things and learn and develop partnerships with people, but there is not presently a rollout plan for any kind of full-scale manufacturing.
That said, I’m learning a ton, and I feel like I understand completely what I want from a guitar perspective these days. For my taste, it’s still a 25.5” scale. I find that for people that tune a bit lower than standard, like myself, the longer scale length adds a lot of tuning stability to the guitar. I’m not trying to make a guitar for everybody. I’m trying to make a guitar for me that other people might also like.
I’ve been prototyping the pedals like crazy and I’m learning a ton from that process. I’ve got some really amazing-sounding pedal designs now—several of which I used on our new record. However, once you have a design, you need to make it manufacturable, so, I’m refining designs while simultaneously working on making them efficient to manufacture. Unfortunately, it’s something I can’t devote a ton of time to presently and I can’t promise that something’s going to be available when I really don’t know when. But I do love doing it!
You played a black guitar with a bound body at the show in Brooklyn a few weeks back. Could you tell me about that one?
That’s my latest design. I’m calling it the Craftsman, and it’s basically a much more stripped-down version of the very first GCI design I had. I have a manufacturing partner for that one and we’re still working things out, but we’ll hopefully be able to produce those in small batches. The work has been incredible and I love the way it sounds. I’ve pretty much settled on Planet Waves tuners and a particular Graph Tech bridge, and the pickups are probably going to be a new design from Lollar called the dB. I have several prototypes of that guitar made with different woods, so I haven’t yet settled on what wood it will be made of or what the cosmetic accoutrement will be, but that thing really does rule. My philosophy with that guitar is the Malcolm Young Gretsch-style, stripped-and-simple thing, and it’s working out really well for me. I used it a ton on the new album.
Ballou won’t reveal Converge’s special tuning: He sees it as a fun challenge for fans to figure out on their own. “One of the strings is G#. That’s the most I’ll give up,” he says. Photo by David Robinson
Any standout spots on the album that were played on that instrument?
I’m pretty sure the song “Arkhipov Calm” has that guitar on it. I actually ended up tracking most of the record with my trusty old First Act Sheena with an EMG Hetfield pickup in it. That thing’s just a tank and it still plays like buttah! That one has a 25.5” scale, but is 1 ¾” wide at the nut, which gives a little extra space on the fretboard, which is really helpful for me with my big mitts. It’s also got super low action and has a 3-piece maple neck, which makes it very stiff in a good way, so the tuning stability is really great, which I need for recording especially.
I really love the Brutalist Jr. distortion pedal business card PCB idea. Could you explain the origins of that project?
I went to NAMM maybe five years ago, and everyone was handing out business cards. I came up with the idea of putting a pedal on a business card because I thought it would help me stand out. I didn’t know which pedal yet, but Nick Williams from Dunwich Amps—who has been a key person helping me with the Brutalist project—suggested a stripped-down version of the Brutalist pedal on a business card. He designed the initial layout of the circuit board and sorted the business card. I’d been modding pedals, but I wasn’t doing any of my own circuit design and I didn’t yet understand any of the design tools. This Brutalist Jr. thing actually sent me down that path: I learned how to use some electrical CAD stuff since then and have designed around 20 pedals since we’ve started this.
The Brutalist Jr. PCB is based on the original Providence Stampede SDT-1 pedal. I picked it up the first time I toured Japan, which was in support of Jane Doe. I try to get musical souvenirs when I can, and I went to some music stores in Japan and tried out the SDT-1. I was using a Boss Metal Zone at the time, more as a volume boost and bass cut with the EQ set flat, which is how I typically run drives. I bought the Providence pedal and fell in love with its sound. It ended up getting used a lot on You Fail Me and No Heroes, and I continued to tour with it.
While it’s a great-sounding pedal, it wasn’t without issues: It’s really big, the switches on it were unreliable, and it runs off of 100 volts, so if I went to Europe, I had to bring a transformer with me. They eventually released a compact version that ran on nine volts, but it just didn’t have the sound anymore. So, I set about trying to clone the thing, which I didn’t have any experience with. I worked with a bunch of friends that were better at electronics than I am in trying to figure out what made that pedal great, what could be improved, what could be discarded, and what had to remain in order to capture that sound. We eventually ended up with a perfect clone. Then I set about improving it. We made one that’s even more full-featured than the original SDT-1, known as the Brutalist, and the Brutalist Jr. (the business card PCB) is a scaled-down version of that. It runs on nine volts and it definitely has the sound, but it’s got less features. There are a lot of mods you can do to it and I’ve listed some ideas on my site. It’s been great to see people get creative with it.
It’s been a super-fun hobby for me. I hope it inspires other people to do the same! I think it has. I see people post their positive experiences with the business card PCB project. I’m happy to have maybe inspired people to build something. I initially made a hundred of them and thought I’d just keep them in my wallet and give ’em to people if I meet them, but I posted a photo of it on my Instagram and people just went bananas. I had all of these people that were upset that they couldn’t get one, so I asked the people at Deathwish records if they’d be willing to sell them. They’re cheap and it just covers the expense of making them, and I had to pay Nick to develop it, so that’s covered in the cost of the board.
Guitars
GodCity Instruments guitars with Lollar dB humbuckers
First Act Sheena with an EMG Hetfield pickup
Amps
Marshall JMP 2204 with military spec 6CA7 power tubes
Marshall 1987X
Marshall 1990 8x10 cab converted to 4x12
Marshall 1960 BHW cab loaded with Eminence Wizard and Hempdog speakers
Effects
TC Electronic PolyTune
Boss NS-2 Noise Suppressor
Foxrox Octron3 analog octave divider
DigiTech Whammy Ricochet
GodCity Instruments BLST3RD Brutalist Distortion
MXR EVH Phase 90
Mr. Black BloodMoon reverb
Boss PS-3 Digital Pitch Shifter
EarthQuaker Devices Avalanche Run
Akai Headrush
TC Electronic MIMIQ Doubler
Palmer PDI03 speaker simulator
Strings and Picks
D’Addario NYXL (.011–.052)
Planet Waves Duralin picks 0.70 mm
Has the songwriting process changed for Converge at all this deep into the years?
It’s still the same thing—just getting together and riffing. We still try to follow whatever inspiration happens to be there and try to make the best songs we can with the material and ideas we have. I know a lot of bands that’ve gotten older and have more complicated lives have moved towards working more independently from each other and do a lot of digital demos and stuff like that. But we’ve actually gone the opposite route and gotten more collaborative, where we don’t work on the music much independently at all.
I think that shines through on the record, especially on things like the rhythmic complexity of a song like “Murk & Marrow.”
The heavy part at the end of that song is actually the same rhythm as the body of the song, just slowed. It’s actually in 13/8 and that’s a Ben [Koller, drums] thing. Ben got into 13/8 time when he started deciphering the theme song from The Terminator. He got really obsessed with it because it’s an ongoing rhythmic theme throughout the movie. So, that song is heavily influenced by The Terminator.
Sometimes I’ll have a riff that I don’t really think has a very interesting rhythm. Ben will have a wacky beat and I’ll tap into the riff bank and find a way to play some harmonic ideas in a rhythm that works with a drum idea that Ben has. That song was one of those.
Could you explain what’s going on with the spooky guitar drone in the left speaker of that song?
It’s a loop. The majority of what you hear on the record with that loop is just a room mic that was recording the first practice when we started writing that song. I tried to re-record it when we tracked the song, but couldn’t get it quite there. It’s just me playing a bunch of notes into an Akai Headrush, and looping the notes and overdubbing over the top. It’s a whole bunch of different notes played and tremolo picked in different rhythms to create this kind of harmonic wash. There’s either an EarthQuaker Devices Dispatch Master or Avalanche Run—something that does both reverb and delay at once—on it, too.
Who has been influential to your guitar playing?
It took a long time for me to even identify as a guitar player. I always felt like a saxophonist that plays guitar or something. For me, it’s so much more about doing what it takes to get the song across: Some of that is wearing my guitar hat, some of that is wearing my engineer hat, some of that’s wearing my producer hat, sometimes it’s wearing my glockenspiel hat or backing vocal hat… whatever it happens to be! That’s my primary concern. I don’t know that “guitar player” is actually a big part of my self-identity. If you took it away from me, it would be hard for me to cope, but I don’t think it’s really a big part of how I see myself.
As far as influences go, at least for this album, it’s been people I’ve been recording. Not necessarily biting somebody’s style—I’ve stolen a little bit from Matt Pike—but aside from that, I don’t really have the emotional capacity to consume music for pleasure right now. I’m working so much and so intently in my studio that there’s not a lot of mental space left for pleasure listening, but the bands I work with certainly influence my playing.
Kurt Ballou’s Craftsman guitar is one of his newest prototypes for his company, GodCity Instruments. It has Planet Waves tuners, a Graph Tech bridge, and a newly designed dB humbucker from Lollar.
What it is about Matt Pike’s playing with Sleep and High on Fire that inspires you?
He’s simultaneously super tight and super loose. He’s got this very flowing, wobbly vibe about his vibrato and the way he works the guitar. He’ll use the whole length of the guitar’s neck rather than come up with efficient ways to play things, so he’ll come up with things that look more badass. He’ll do big chord jumps on the same string rather than skip to the next string, and it gives his playing a different, kind of more sliding, sound. So between that, and his vibrato, I really got into Matt’s style.
A lot of the time when a band is tracking guitars in my studio, I have a guitar in my hand. I use it as a communicative tool, but I’m also in the process of learning their riffs: partially out of boredom, partially to educate myself about their songs, and partially to try and pick up a bit of a new style. I think doing that while recording Matt has been very helpful for me.
The mountain of amplifiers you’ve amassed at GodCity is pretty famous at this point. Could you tell us what you used primarily to track guitars on the new Converge record? I noticed you had vintage-style Marshalls onstage again recently.
For the Marshall stuff I’m using live, one of them is actually a new 50-watt plexi reissue: the 1987X, which I really like. I was running an oversized cab that used to be an 8x10 that I converted to a 4x12 in 2002, and I’ve had that along for quite a few tours. The other amp is a mid-’70s JMP 2204 that I’ve had for around 20 years, but I recently put it in a small head shell so it looks better next to that 50-watt Plexi. That JMP was serviced recently by Scot DeBockler of S&K Pedals, and he put some military spec 6CA7 power tubes in it, which brought that amp to a whole new level. It ended up being the primary guitar sound on the new album, and it’s an amp that’s appeared on all of our records. I’ve had a lot of trouble restraining myself with how many amps I record with in the past. I’ll try different setups and before I know it, I’m tracking a million guitar tracks. That gets hard to mix down, and while more tracks can sound bigger, it typically sounds less focused. So I’ve been trying to have the discipline to go for a sound that feels more emotionally intense by having more nuance, and a simpler, less-layered sound usually has more character.
It’s mostly that JMP and an Ampeg V4 in one side, and the JMP and a small combo amp by a company called Sparrows Sons on the other. Those three amps were the main amps that I used on the record, and it’s mostly just two rhythm guitars with occasional overdubs.
I imagine you must have been boosting the V4 with a pedal to get it to sound so mean?
Yeah, so I mostly used three dirt pedals on the record. In most cases, it’s really the sound of the amp, but I like to use a dirt pedal as a bit of an EQ and a boost, regardless of which pedal I’m using. What I used most on this record is a prototype of a GCI pedal called the Riff Child, which is basically a hybrid of a Boss OS-2 and a ZVEX Super Hard On. For the sludgier-sounding songs, I used a GCI pedal called an SBD. It’s based on the Vox Super Beatle Distortion circuit, which is really Vox’s take on a Fuzz Face. Mine has extra EQ controls that I’ve added to the circuit. I really like that pedal for heavy but harmonically rich riffing. It’s a little more smeared sounding than a boost or overdrive, but still pretty articulate. If I needed something between those two, I use a prototype of the Brutalist.
There are some more traditional, even shreddy, guitar solos on this record, like on “Broken by Light.” That athletic lead playing has come out more in recent years and I’m curious if it’s something you had to get comfortable including in Converge’s sound?
Converge has never been strictly a hardcore band, so I’ve never exactly been afraid of solos. When we write the music, we generally don’t hear the vocals until Jake records them, so there’s a lot of guesswork in terms of the arrangements of the songs when we write them. Once vocals get added, there can be holes that need to be filled with something and vocals aren’t always the answer. In the case of “Broken by Light,” the two solos in that song were not intended to be there from the start, but with the way Jake phrased his vocals, it felt like they needed to be added in those spots.
That said, soloing isn’t something I practice. It’s not something I feel I’m very good at, and I’m pretty locked in the pentatonic box. It’s definitely not a forte of mine, but I do like to get wild. It’s a fun challenge for me.
Do you have any tricks for maintaining an objective ear while tracking your own guitar parts? Any advice on self-editing as both a producer and guitarist?
It’s hard. It’s something that comes with experience, but trusting my bandmates is a really important part of it. I see a lot of bands in my studio that don’t have a great deal of trust in their bandmates, and also they don’t yet know how to let go of the things they think are precious. My bandmates and I disagree about things, but we have the same goals in mind. I trust that even if we’re having a disagreement, we have the same end goal in mind and that it’s not about personal ego, which you have to let go of. I know in my early days of making music, it was the end of the world for me if a musical idea I had wasn’t going to be used, and I’d try and railroad the idea through. Now, having been through the process a lot of times, each little thing is not so precious to me.
The other important technique is knowing when to step back and take some time away from something. When we’re writing songs, we tend to demo every practice because we rehearse in my studio, so we can get decent recordings every time we practice. We can stew on that stuff, and a lot of ideas we thought were amazing at the time turn into things we realize are terrible after sitting on them a bit. You need to learn to fight your impatience. It’s really easy to get excited about finishing an idea and, in the haste to finish it, lose the plot. And the converse is also true: If you overthink an idea and feel like you’re shortchanging it, you can dwell for too long and ruin something cool. Being aware of that is huge. Time away from things and listening back to demos after that time away is a major thing for me. When you’re just listening back to something and not performing it, you’re listening to whether or not it sounds cool, not whether or not it feels cool to play. There are things to play on guitar that are really fun to play that aren’t necessarily good ideas musically, and that can be really distracting.
Are you still using your own tunings, and are you willing to divulge them yet?
Yes, I’m still using my own tunings. I still haven’t seen or heard anyone figure out my main tuning, though I’m sure someone has. I think I want to keep it a secret just because I encourage people to figure it out for themselves. I’m no longer concerned with people ripping us off because they know our tuning. I was at one point, but now I see it more as a challenge to guitar-playing fans of ours. One of the strings is G#. That’s the most I’ll give up.
What’s your advice for players seeking to find their own voice?
A lot of the things about my playing that people consider unique are really just my inability to emulate other sounds well. I’ve certainly tried to emulate things at times, and I do have a diverse musical background, but I’m just not particularly good at decoding things. So, a lot of my own failed, clumsy attempts at emulating my heroes luckily managed to materialize into some pretty cool ideas. This has more to do with my own perseverance and the strength of the people that I’ve been playing with than my own ability.
I think it’s super important to be able to recognize and capitalize on your own weaknesses, and whatever circumstances you’ve found yourself thrown into. I was recently reminded of someone that I recorded who only had two digits on one hand due to a birth defect, but he was this absolutely savage bass player because the two digits that he did have had to be doubly strong to make up for what he didn’t have. So, while he wasn’t great at things like palm muting, he had this incredible strength to his hand that made him a killer bass player with a very unique style. That’s an extreme example, but the point is, you have to take your life experience, your influences, your physical attributes, your economic condition—whether you can afford a bunch of gear or can’t—whatever your circumstances are, you need to get creative with what you’ve got. We see it with bedroom producers all the time now. It used to be that your only option was playing with a band and playing loud. Now you can do it by yourself in your room and use amp-modeling software and drum libraries, and because of those tools and people’s creative uses of those tools, entirely new styles of music are created. People are using what they have at their disposal and that can dramatically influence how you write music. It’s a matter of always changing the way you approach things. That’s how you keep it interesting and evolving. That’s the key for me, at least.
Watch Converge absolutely decimate Brooklyn’s Saint Vitus club in December 2017 in this hour-long performance.
Kurt Ballou demonstrates the S&K VHD pedal on his “demovids” YouTube channel. In this series, Ballou and Converge bassist Nate Newton let us watch while they explore new gear.
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The Spirit Fall trio: drummer Brian Blade (right) and saxophonist Chris Potter (center) joined Patitucci (left) for a single day at The Bunker. “Those guys are scary. It almost puts pressure on me, how good they are, because they get it really fast,” says Patitucci.
Legendary bassist John Patitucci continues to explore the sound of a chord-less trio that balances melodicism with boundless harmonic freedom—and shares lessons he learned from his mentors Chick Corea and Wayne Shorter.
In 1959, Miles Davis’ Kind of Blue and John Coltrane’s Giant Steps—two of the most influential albums in jazz history—were recorded. It’s somewhat poetic that four-time Grammy-winning jazz bass icon John Patitucci was born that same year. In addition to a storied career as a bandleader, Patitucci cemented his legacy through his lengthy association with two giants of jazz: keyboardist Chick Corea, with whom Patitucci enjoyed a 10-year tenure as an original member of his Elektric and Akoustic bands, and saxophonist Wayne Shorter’s quartet, of which he was a core member for 20 years. Patitucci has also worked with a who’s who of jazz elites like Herbie Hancock, McCoy Tyner, Dizzy Gillespie, and Michael Brecker.
What distinguishes Patitucci is that he is one of the few jazz musicians who simultaneously enjoys a vibrant career as a classical bassist and first-call session bassist. His résumé—which includes recordings with pop icons like Sting and Bon Jovi, and hundreds of film dates—is virtually unparalleled. Patitucci also composes classical music and is frequently commissioned to write music for string quartets and other chamber ensembles. Among his numerous compositions are a piece for 6-string electric bass and string orchestra that was performed with Suono e Oltre, a chamber orchestra in Italy. In short, Patitucci is the very rare jack of all trades who is also exceptional at all.
Freedom without Chords
Patitucci’s latest release, Spirit Fall, is a trio album featuring Patitucci, drummer Brian Blade, and saxophonist Chris Potter. This instrumentation leaves out a traditional chordal instrument, and can be tricky to make sound full, as there is a large harmonic hole in the sonic space. But in the hands of master musicians, this setting offers more room for harmonic exploration and conversational interplay amongst the band members. Patitucci has been exploring this chord-less format since 2009’s Remembrance featuring Blade on drums and Joe Lovano on saxophone.Throughout Spirit Fall the trio employs a variety of textures and colors to make for an engaging listen. “Pole Star” has an open feel with the counterpoint between acoustic bass and sax discreetly implying the underlying progression. “Lipim,” which means hope in Cameroonian, has a lively afrobeat groove and a ridiculous sax solo by Chris Potter. Like many of his solos on Spirt Fall, Potter’s solo on “Lipim” veers through several harmonic detours that would have likely been hampered if a chordal instrument were imposing the harmony. “Spirit Fall” and “Thoughts and Dreams” sees Patitucci using his 6-string electric to explore gorgeously haunting figures. The bass solo on “Spirit Fall” sees Patitucci almost accompanying himself as he alternates between low notes and chords against blistering single-note lines.
Even though Patitucci had the luxury of studio time, Spirit Fall was recorded quickly, with mostly first or second takes, and the occasional third take. The trio was able to record a powerful musical statement in such a short time because they are a working band as opposed to hired guns that might possibly play together for the first time at the session.
John Patitucci's Gear
“I’m just a kid from Brooklyn,” says Patitucci. It was his formative years spent with his older brother (who played guitar) that led him to the bass.
Photo by Dave Stapleton
Guitars
- Yamaha TRBJP2 Signature Model 6-String
- Yamaha Custom Semi-Hollow 6-String
- 1965 Fender P Bass (Used on “Lipim”)
- Gagliano Double Bass
Amps
- Aguilar DB 751 for acoustic bass
- Aguilar Tone Hammer for electric bass
- Aguilar 4x10 cabinet
- Aguilar 1x12 cabinet
- Grace Design FELiX Version 2
- Grace Design m303 DI
Effects
- Line 6 HX Stomp
- Line 6 DL4
Strings and Accessories
- D’Addario Nickel Round Strings (.032-.045-.065-.085-.105-.130)
- Gruvgear Signature Straps
- Pirastro Evah Pirazzi Weich gauge
- Pirastro Perpetual
Prior to the recording, Patitucci sent demos out, and by the time they got to the studio they were ready to commit to tape. They finished the whole record in just one day without any rehearsals. “Not with those guys,” says Patitucci. “Those guys are scary. It almost puts pressure on me, how good they are, because they get it really fast [laughs]. I was hoping that my good takes were theirs too.”
Interestingly enough, while iconic chord-less trio albums by saxophonists like Sonny Rollins, John Coltrane, and Joe Henderson played a big role in Patitucci’s musical upbringing, he came to record with that instrumentation almost by accident. “We were going to rehearse for that record [Remembrance], and [pianist] Brad Mehldau, who played on some tracks, couldn’t make the rehearsal,” recalls Patitucci. “So we rehearsed at Lovano’s house and it sounded so good I was almost like, ‘Wow, maybe we should do the record as a trio.’ But I had all this music written that really was for the piano. So I said, ‘Well, maybe someday.’ And then finally we got around to it.”
Spirit Fall was tailored to the sensibilities of Blade and Potter, both of whom Patitucci has played with a lot over the years. “We have a relationship and we have a sound together already because of the way they play. Brian’s sense of dynamics has made it easier for me to get the kind of acoustic bass sound live that I've always wanted to get. It’s not easy to do that if the drummer can’t play those wide dynamics like Brian can,” explains Patitucci. “And Chris has been playing my music for years. He’s just an incredible interpreter of my music, and I love that. I remember using him in the early ’90s. Interestingly enough, around the time I did Imprint, I was using him and I was also using Mark Turner. And it’s funny. I started teaching college [Patitucci was Professor of Jazz Studies at City College of New York and is currently teaching at Berklee College of Music] a lot in 2000, and all my students were trying to sound like those guys.”“As a composer, I wanted to have a chance to have major control over the sound and how we did things, as opposed to a live record.”
As a precursor to Spirit Fall, in 2022 Patitucci had recorded Live in Italy with the same lineup of Blade and Potter. He could have easily just done Spirit Falllive againwith the trio but this time he specifically chose to bring them into the studio. “As a composer, I wanted to have a chance to have major control over the sound and how we did things, as opposed to a live record,” explains Patitucci. “Live records are great, but I wanted to record in the studio with that band so we can get into some new compositions I was writing, and some through-composed things with the 6-string, as well as the acoustic.”
How Chick Helped Turn Four into Six
Patitucci isn’t fond only of the traditional trio sans chordal instrument format. In fact, he’s recorded in just about every context you can imagine. From completely solo bass on Soul of the Bass, to his Electric Guitar Quartet with two guitarists—Adam Rogers and Steve Cardenas on Brooklyn, to guitar trio plus string quartet plus Chris Potter on Line by Line. Patitucci uses each situation as a way to grow musically.When Patitucci first started playing with Corea it was in the trio format, along with drummer Dave Weckl. Corea was a keyboardist who covered a huge sonic range and Patitucci saw this as an opportunity to push the creative envelope. “Chick and I became very close. I had enormous respect and love for him and he taught me a lot. That’s how I really discovered the 6-string, because I felt like I needed it orchestrationally to play in that band,” says Patitucci. “I started playing with Chick and at first I played my 4-string, and it’s a trio, but I have to blow on every song. And he’s got all these synths, and I’m thinking, ‘Man, I need a low string, because he’s playing all these low notes. I want to play the low notes.’ [laughs] I need a 5-string at least. Then I heard Anthony Jackson play the six. He was the pioneer who invented it.”
Spirit Fall is the documentation of a working band exploring new music in the studio. It features all new compositions and an inventive take on “House of Jade,” written by Patitucci’s longtime mentor, Wayne Shorter.
Corea fronted the money for Patitucci’s first 6-string—a Ken Smith—and took some money out of his check every week to pay it off. The transition to the 6-string wasn’t immediate for Patitucci, however. There was actually a big learning curve to the new instrument. To make matters even more daunting, the first big tour was to begin two weeks after Patitucci received the new instrument. Despite all the potential risks, Corea was very encouraging. “Chick was really patient. It was ridiculous. It was so hard. I was just a glutton for punishment,” admits Patitucci. “I just wanted the sound, and I was so naive about what it would be like. When I got the 6-string, it was a couple of weeks before we started going out on major tours and I was clamming. Like I would go down to what I thought was the E string but was now the B string.”
Once he got a handle on it, the 6-string allowed Patitucci to finally maximize the potential of his fluid soloing style. “I wanted to play the 6-string because when the blowing comes around, the C string helps me get over the top as a band,” says Patitucci. “Chick dug the fact that when I was blowing I wanted to sound more like a tenor player.”
“Wayne [Shorter] made me have the courage to play very little and hang a note up in the air.”
Shortly after Patitucci joined his band, Corea convinced GRP Records to sign Patitucci, whose 1987 eponymous first solo album reached number 1 on the Billboard Top Jazz Albums chart. Patitucci reflects, “The two biggest long term influences in terms of mentoring and what they did for my career would have been Chick Corea and then Wayne Shorter.”
The Spirit of Shorter
Patitucci first met Shorter in 1986, during the Chick, Wayne, and Al (Di Meola) tour. A year later Shorter asked Patitucci to record several tracks on his album, Phantom Navigator. This began his association with Shorter and led to Patitucci ultimately joining Shorter’s quartet in 2000.
It’s fitting that the only non-original tune on Spirit Fall is a Shorter tune, “House of Jade.” Shorter’s highly individual approach—particularly the electric stuff he was doing from the Atlantisperiod—shaped a lot of Patitucci’s conception of music. “I was playing electric bass and all the tunes were through-composed, except the blowing was like on one chord. And, you know, that’s challenging, actually,” reveals Patitucci. “And he was creating these incredible things, and he could do it with density or almost nothing, almost like one note. His lyricism and melodicism is so powerful that it really changed me. I was like, ‘Wow, I want to play like that. I want to be able to have a sound that I can be confident enough about to leave a ton of space and be able to just let space happen.’ Like, he got that from Miles.”
Moving to a 6-string bass wasn’t as natural for Patitucci as you might think. “When I got the 6-string, it was a couple of weeks before we started going out on major tours [with Chick Corea] and I was clamming.”
The minimalist approach that Shorter used at times was a stark contrast to some of the over-the-top pyrotechnics Corea’s Elektric Band was known for. “I was always into melodies too, but yes, in Chick’s band there were a lot of changes to play over, and sometimes a lot of fast tempos,” says Patitucci. “It wasn’t only chops, there were a lot of melodies and we played ballads too. I mean, I wanted to do that, but I didn’t have the courage to. Wayne made me have the courage to play very little and hang a note up in the air. With the 6-string, you can really do that. I started to realize that I was really interested in moving people in that way too.”
The Journey of the Kid from Brooklyn
Subliminally, the transition from 4- to 6-string bass might harken back to Patitucci’s childhood in East Flatbush, Brooklyn. He originally picked up the guitar, influenced by his brother Tom who had already been playing. Tom tried to teach him but ultimately the guitar just didn’t connect, and Tom sensed it. “He just said, ‘Why don’t you try the bass?’” recalls Patitucci. “Because we can play together then.” And that’s where it all began.
At 10, Patitucci got his first bass, a short-scale Sears Telstar bass that was hanging on a wall like a decoration down the street at somebody’s house on East 39th Street. “We bought it for 10 bucks and I thought it was great,” reflects Patitucci, who enjoyed rock ’n’ roll and James Jamerson’s playing on Motown Records in his formative years.
When he was 13, Patitucci’s family moved out to the West Coast. Soon after the move, Patitucci started learning the acoustic bass, and by the early ’80s, Patitucci’s career started taking off. In 1996 he moved back to New York, where he continues to break new musical ground.
With a career spanning over four decades and still going strong, Patitucci has achieved the dream that many aspiring musicians long for. What is the secret to his success? “Nobody knows the secret and anybody who tells you they know that is lying,” says Patitucci. “I don't even deserve it. I think that God was really good to me and blessed me. He somehow allowed me to have my dream come true. I look at it now as a 65-year old guy and go, ‘Wow, that was really a long shot.’ [laughs] It’s kind of unbelievable. You know what, I mean? I’m just this kid from Brooklyn, you know?”YouTube It
This trio rendition of the Beatles’ “And I Love Her” showcases John Patitucci’s ability to add chordal textures on his 6-string bass to create a full sound, even without a conventional chordal instrument like guitar or piano.
With authentic stage-class Katana amp sounds, wireless music streaming, and advanced spatial technology, the KATANA:GO is designed to offer a premium sound experience without the need for amps or pedals.
BOSS announces the return of KATANA:GO, an ultra-compact headphone amplifier for daily jams with a guitar or bass. KATANA:GO puts authentic sounds from the stage-class BOSS Katana amp series at the instrument’s output jack, paired with wireless music streaming, sound editing, and learning tools on the user’s smartphone. Advanced spatial technology provides a rich 3D audio experience, while BOSS Tone Exchange offers an infinite sound library to explore any musical style.
Offering all the features of the previous generation in a refreshed external design, KATANA:GO delivers premium sound for everyday playing without the hassle of amps, pedals, and computer interfaces. Users can simply plug it into their instrument, connect earbuds or headphones, call up a memory, and go. Onboard controls provide access to volume, memory selection, and other essential functions, while the built-in screen displays the tuner and current memory. The rechargeable battery offers up to five hours of continuous playing time, and the integrated 1/4-inch plug folds down to create a pocket-size package that’s ready to travel anywhere.
KATANA:GO drives sessions with genuine sounds from the best-selling Katana stage amp series. Guitar mode features 10 unique amp characters, including clean, crunch, the high-gain BOSS Brown type, two acoustic/electric guitar characters, and more. There’s also a dedicated bass mode with Vintage, Modern, and Flat types directly ported from the Katana Bass amplifiers. Each mode includes a massive library of BOSS effects to explore, with deep sound customization available in the companion BOSS Tone Studio app for iOS and Android.
The innovative Stage Feel feature in KATANA:GO provides an immersive audio experience with advanced BOSS spatial technology. Presets allow the user to position the amp sound and backing music in different places in the sound field, giving the impression of playing with a backline on stage or jamming in a room with friends.
The guitar and bass modes in KATANA:GO each feature 30 memories loaded with ready-to-play sounds. BOSS Tone Studio allows the player to tweak preset memories, create sounds from scratch, or import Tone Setting memories created with stage-class Katana guitar and bass amplifiers. The app also provides integrated access to BOSS Tone Exchange, where users can download professionally curated Livesets and share sounds with the global BOSS community.
Pairing KATANA:GO with a smartphone offers a complete mobile solution to supercharge daily practice. Players can jam along with songs from their music library and tap into BOSS Tone Studio’s Session feature to hone skills with YouTube learning content. It’s possible to build song lists, loop sections for focused study, and set timestamps to have KATANA:GO switch memories automatically while playing with YouTube backing tracks.
The versatile KATANA:GO functions as a USB audio interface for music production and online content creation on a computer or mobile device. External control of wah, volume, memory selection, and more are also supported via the optional EV-1-WL Wireless MIDI Expression Pedal and FS-1-WL Wireless Footswitch.
For more information, please visit boss.info.
In our third installment with Santa Cruz Guitar Company founder Richard Hoover, the master luthier shows PG's John Bohlinger how his team of builders assemble and construct guitars like a chef preparing food pairings. Hoover explains that the finer details like binding, headstock size and shape, internal bracing, and adhesives are critical players in shaping an instrument's sound. Finally, Richard explains how SCGC uses every inch of wood for making acoustic guitars or outside ventures like surfboards and art.
We know Horsegirl as a band of musicians, but their friendships will always come before the music. From left to right: Nora Cheng, drummer Gigi Reece, and Penelope Lowenstein.
The Chicago-via-New York trio of best friends reinterpret the best bits of college-rock and ’90s indie on their new record, Phonetics On and On.
Horsegirl guitarists Nora Cheng and Penelope Lowenstein are back in their hometown of Chicago during winter break from New York University, where they share an apartment with drummer Gigi Reece. They’re both in the middle of writing papers. Cheng is working on one about Buckminster Fuller for a city planning class, and Lowenstein is untangling Austrian writer Ingeborg Bachmann’s short story, “Three Paths to the Lake.”
“It was kind of life-changing, honestly. It changed how I thought about womanhood,” Lowenstein says over the call, laughing a bit at the gravitas of the statement.
But the moment of levity illuminates the fact that big things are happening in their lives. When they released their debut album, 2022’s Versions of Modern Performance, the three members of Horsegirl were still teenagers in high school. Their new, sophomore record, Phonetics On and On, arrives right in the middle of numerous first experiences—their first time living away from home, first loves, first years of their 20s, in university. Horsegirl is going through changes. Lowenstein notes how, through moving to a new city, their friendship has grown, too, into something more familial. They rely on each other more.
“If the friendship was ever taking a toll because of the band, the friendship would come before the band, without any doubt.”–Penelope Lowenstein
“Everyone's cooking together, you take each other to the doctor,” Lowenstein says. “You rely on each other for weird things. I think transitioning from being teenage friends to suddenly working together, touring together, writing together in this really intimate creative relationship, going through sort of an unusual experience together at a young age, and then also starting school together—I just feel like it brings this insane intimacy that we work really hard to maintain. And if the friendship was ever taking a toll because of the band, the friendship would come before the band without any doubt.”
Horsegirl recorded their sophomore LP, Phonetics On and On, at Wilco’s The Loft studio in their hometown, Chicago.
These changes also include subtle and not-so-subtle shifts in their sophisticated and artful guitar-pop. Versions of Modern Performance created a notion of the band as ’90s college-rock torchbearers, with reverb-and-distortion-drenched numbers that recalled Yo La Tengo and the Breeders. Phonetics On and On doesn’t extinguish the flame, but it’s markedly more contemporary, sacrificing none of the catchiness but opting for more space, hypnotic guitar lines, and meditative, repeated phrases. Cheng and Lowenstein credit Welsh art-pop wiz Cate Le Bon’s presence as producer in the studio as essential to the sonic direction.
“On the record, I think we were really interested in Young Marble Giants—super minimal, the percussiveness of the guitar, and how you can do so much with so little.”–Nora Cheng
“We had never really let a fourth person into our writing process,” Cheng says. “I feel like Cate really changed the way we think about how you can compose a song, and built off ideas we were already thinking about, and just created this very comfortable space for experimentation and pushed us. There are so many weird instruments and things that aren't even instruments at [Wilco’s Chicago studio] The Loft. I feel like, definitely on our first record, we were super hesitant to go into territory that wasn't just distorted guitar, bass, and drums.”
Nora Cheng's Gear
Nora Cheng says that letting a fourth person—Welsh artist Cate Le Bon—into the trio’s songwriting changed how they thought about composition.
Photo by Braden Long
Effects
- EarthQuaker Devices Plumes
- Ibanez Tube Screamer
- TC Electronic Polytune
Picks
- Dunlop Tortex .73 mm
Phonetics On and On introduces warm synths (“Julie”), raw-sounding violin (“In Twos”), and gamelan tiles—common in traditional Indonesian music—to Horsegirl’s repertoire, and expands on their already deep quiver of guitar sounds as Cheng and Lowenstein branch into frenetic squonks, warped jangles, and jagged, bare-bones riffs. The result is a collection of songs simultaneously densely textured and spacious.
“I listen to these songs and I feel like it captures the raw, creative energy of being in the studio and being like, ‘Fuck! We just exploded the song. What is about to happen?’” Lowenstein says. “That feeling is something we didn’t have on the first record because we knew exactly what we wanted to capture and it was the songs we had written in my parents’ basement.”
Cheng was first introduced to classical guitar as a kid by her dad, who tried to teach her, and then she was subsequently drawn back to rock by bands like Cage The Elephant and Arcade Fire. Lowenstein started playing at age 6, which covers most of her life memories and comprises a large part of her identity. “It made me feel really powerful as a young girl to know that I was a very proficient guitarist,” she says. The shreddy playing of Television, Pink Floyd’s spacey guitar solos, and Yo La Tengo’s Ira Kaplan were all integral to her as Horsegirl began.
Penelope Lowenstein's Gear
Penelope Lowenstein likes looking back at the versions of herself that made older records.
Photo by Braden Long
Effects
- EarthQuaker Westwood
- EarthQuaker Bellows
- TC Electronic PolyTune
Picks
- Dunlop Tortex 1.0 mm
Recently, the two of them have found themselves influenced by guitarists both related and unrelated to the type of tunes they’re trading in on their new album. Lowenstein got into Brazilian guitar during the pandemic and has recently been “in a Jim O’Rourke, John Fahey zone.”
“There’s something about listening to that music where you realize, about the guitar, that you can just compose an entire orchestra on one instrument,” Lowenstein says. “And hearing what the bass in those guitar parts is doing—as in, the E string—is kind of mind blowing.”
“On the record, I think we were really interested in Young Marble Giants—super minimal, the percussiveness of the guitar, and how you can do so much with so little,” Cheng adds. “And also Lizzy Mercier [Descloux], mostly on the Rosa Yemen records. That guitar playing I feel was very inspiring for the anti-solo,[a technique] which appears on [Phonetics On and On].”This flurry of focused discovery gives the impression that Cheng and Lowenstein’s sensibilities are shifting day-to-day, buoyed by the incredible expansion of creative possibilities that setting one’s life to revolve around music can afford. And, of course, the energy and exponential growth of youth. Horsegirl has already clocked major stylistic shifts in their brief lifespan, and it’s exciting to have such a clear glimpse of evolution in artists who are, likely and hopefully, just beginning a long journey together.
“There’s something about listening to that music where you realize, about the guitar, that you can just compose an entire orchestra on one instrument.”–Penelope Lowenstein
“In your 20s, life moves so fast,” Lowenstein says. “So much changes from the time of recording something to releasing something that even that process is so strange. You recognize yourself, and you also kind of sympathize with yourself. It's a really rewarding way of life, I think, for musicians, and it's cool that we have our teenage years captured like that, too—on and on until we're old women.”
YouTube It
Last summer, Horsegirl gathered at a Chicago studio space to record a sun-soaked set of new and old tunes.