dustin wong

Wong plays both with a flatpick and fingerstyle. When plucking the strings with his fingers, he was intent on developing a unique approach. “It was more a way to get percussive—to make the guitar not sound like a guitar,” he explains. “I palm mute it and mainly use my fingertips rather than my nails. That gets more of a hand-drum sound.”
Photo by PSquared Photography

The avant-garde player reveals his looping techniques and explains why he limits his pedal acquisitions to about two per year.

Guitarist/loop-master Dustin Wong likes to keep it simple, although that isn’t obvious at first glance. His music is an intricate fabric of complex interlocking rhythms, multiple looped layers, and subtle timbral contrasts. But simplicity is his music’s dominant feature, which explains its accessibility and tunefulness, as well as its swirling, repetitive, mantra-like feel.

Simplicity also explains Wong’s penchant for low-tech gear.

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