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Sparhawk, Alan: Solo Guitar (Silber Media)

Live recordings using guitar loops & reverb, allowing a greater immediacy & improvisation to the guitar work than a more orchestrated approach would allow.
 

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product information:

Personnel:



Alan Sparhawk-guitar, effects


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Label: Silber Media
Catalog ID: 049
Squidco Product Code: 11042

Format: CD
Condition: New
Released: 2006
Country: USA
Packaging: Cardstock Gatefold Sleeve
Recorded live at Sacred Heart, in Duluth, Minnesota, by Eric Swanson.

Descriptions, Reviews, &c.

"Solo Guitar is the album length debut from Alan Sparhawk of the minimalist-indie- pop band Low. Listeners expecting the rock & roll element SparhawkÕs recently become known for with the Black-Eyed Snakes will be surprise to hear guitar exploration in the vein of ÒDo You Know How to Waltz?Ó or ÒWill the Night.Ó Guitar sounds are in the vein of underground stars like Aarktica & Reynols as well as guitar heroes like Eddie VanHalen.

The entire album was recorded live using guitar loops & reverb allowing a greater immediacy & improvisation to the guitar work than a more orchestrated approach would allow. Without the constraints of working with any sounds not at the control of his hands or feet, Sparhawk is able to push his guitar to fill the entire audio spectrum. The songs begin with single notes that often build up to be larger than an orchestra playing Ligeti. The disc shows both sides of guitar drone, the aggression of playing a guitar by beating it with a fist & the inherit peacefulness in a heavily reverbed slow crescendo."-Silber Media


Artist Biographies

"Alan Sparhawk (born 1969) is an American musician and singer-songwriter. He is best known as the guitarist and vocalist for bands Low and Retribution Gospel Choir.

George Alan Sparhawk (who goes by "Alan") was born in Seattle, Washington and grew up in Utah. He met Mimi Parker when he was 9, after his family moved to Minnesota. Sparhawk began writing his own compositions around the age of 13. He later married Parker, and eventually began performing with her in the band Low in Duluth, Minnesota in 1993.

Low released their first album in 1994. As of 2015, Low has released eleven full-length studio albums. As of 2010, the group is composed of founding members Sparhawk (guitar and vocals) and Mimi Parker (drums and vocals), joined by newer addition Steve Garrington (bass guitar).

The music of Low is characterized by slow tempos and minimalist arrangements. Early descriptions sometimes referred to it as rock subgenre called "slowcore". However, Low's members ultimately disapproved of the term.

Parker and Sparhawk's striking vocal harmonies represent perhaps the group's most distinctive element; critic Denise Sullivan writes that their shared vocals are "as chilling as anything Gram and Emmylou ever conspired onÑthough that's not to say it's country-tinged, just straight from the heart."

Sparhawk is also a member of the blues-roots band Black Eyed Snakes, the blues-dub jam band Los Besos, and the rock band Retribution Gospel Choir. He also occasionally plays solo shows in his hometown. As a solo artist, Sparhawk released his debut album entitled Solo Guitar in August, 2006. He also released a track on a various artists compilation, Songs for the End of the World, as Hollis M. Sparhawk & Her Father, and the track "Be Nice To People With Lice" on the various artists compilation album See You on the Moon!. In 2007 he did a Take-Away Show acoustic video session shot by Vincent Moon.

Sparhawk has done charity work with the Maasai tribe in Kenya. After a friend of his became a friend of the village of Namuncha, he played a Christmas show in order to raise funds to build a school there, where students had previously been meeting in the shade outside. He calls the experience of visiting the Maasai one of the most spiritual of his life.

Alan and Mimi live in Duluth, Minnesota, with their two children. They are members of the Mormon faith, about which Sparhawk has said, "our spiritual beliefs encompass our whole life and understanding of who we are and what we do."

In 2012, Sparhawk, along with vocalist and fiddle player Gaelynn Lea, created the group A Murder of Crows. Their first album, Imperfecta, was released in June 2012.

Sparhawk has tuned his guitar to Open G since the late eighties, saying, "now it's the only way I know how.""

-Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Sparhawk)
3/27/2024

Have a better biography or biography source? Please Contact Us so that we can update this biography.


Track Listing:



1. 1:45

2. 1:11

3. 13:25

4. 17:52

5. 1:51

6. 0:38

7. 2:48

8. 2:35

9. 0:55

Related Categories of Interest:


Electro-Acoustic
Electro-Acoustic Improv
Guitarists, &c.
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