The Squid's Ear Magazine
The Squid's Ear Magazine


Vasseur, Christian / Steve Gibbs / Nicolo Vivi : FWWU+ Duos Trios [2 CDs] (4DaRecord)

Expanding the Fire Walk With Us project from duo to trio, guitarists Christian Vasseur, Steve Gibbs and Nicolo Vivi explore extended-range classical guitars, quarter-tone tuning and a custom four-way piezo system that brings otherwise inaudible fretboard, contact and string-fragment sounds into the acoustic field, creating finely detailed duos and spatialized trio improvisations across two discs.
 

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Product Information:

Personnel:



Christian Vasseur-11 string alto guitar, tuned in quarter tones, 8 string classical guitar

Steve Gibbs-8 string classical guitar

Nicolo Vivi-8 string guitar, 4 way piezo system

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UPC: 199800637438

Label: 4DaRecord
Catalog ID: 4DRCD020
Squidco Product Code: 37891

Format: 2 CDs
Condition: New
Released: 2025
Country: Portugal
Packaging: Cardboard Gatefold
CD 1 was recorded at Steve Gibbs� home in Saint-Gilles, Brussels, in February and May 2024.

CD 2 was recorded in June 2025, by Christian Vasseur.
Descriptions, Reviews, &c.

Artist Biographies

"Christian Vasseur began classical guitar as an autodidact before taking classes with Pascal Boëls and Jean-Philippe Gruneissen at the Lille Conservatory. He learned the lute with Eugène Ferré at the Toulouse Conservatory and with Yasunori Imamura and Paul O'Dette during master classes. For 15 years he led musical theatre and free improvisation workshops for different audiences: children and adults, adolescents in detention, adults and disabled children. Meeting vulnerable or destitute people has had a profound influence on the way he works today.

He has composed numerous pieces of music for various instruments and ensembles. Christian Vasseur's music owes as much to classical tradition as to popular expression. It is protean and free of any dogma. Improvisation plays a large part in it. Over the years, beyond the forms it takes, it develops an imaginary folklore that seems to come from familiar lands. Yet a little nothing, something ineffable says that we are elsewhere.

Classical compositions, tinkering, sound collages, cinema without images and iconoclastic chaos are all side roads towards spaces with depth of field, superpositions of shots and panoramic views. In works with voices, interjections are the traces of a language of origins, the sound fossils of a great primitive sensual poem. Words, syllables become abstract objects, bricks of poetic and musical constructions. In the theater, his music is a counterpoint to the text, another voice, melodic, dissonant or noisy according to the dramaturgical needs. Acoustic sounds are often combined with electronics.

He has long been passionate about multi-string instruments such as the eleven-string alto guitar, the archlute, the mohan veena, the weissenborn-harp and the ten-string lapsteel electric guitar. These instruments allow him to explore new sound universes."

-Christian Vasseur Website (Translated by Google) (https://christianvasseur.weebly.com/)
9/14/2026

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

"Born in Chicago in 1959 and settled in Belgium since the beginning of the 1990's, Steve Gibbs has developed a unique world of expression through his 8 string classical guitar, a wonderfully deep-sounding instrument with its own spacious voice, quite different from that of the more familiar 6 string instrument. Working with master luthiers, Steve has developed a radically personalized tool which, in addition to its velvety, cello-like expanded bass register, also expands the spectrum of available sound types. A quadruple contact captor embedded it the instrument's headstock opens up the exploration of zones of the instrument that normally go unheard, enabling him to move seamlessly through historical contrapuntal works, contemporary classical creation, contact noise and experimental string fractions, all within a single instrument. Over a half century of activity, Steve has shared his music with listeners in Asia, Europe and the USA. His professional training includes Western music, Carnatic and Buddhist chant and Korean shamanist percussion. At present, Steve's work is focused on a vast cycle of solo works in collaboration with composer Alain Féron, introduced on the " programme " page."

-Steve Gibbs Website (https://musiqueclassiquecontemporaine.wordpress.com/)
9/14/2026

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

Italian guitarist Nicolò Vivi (b. 1999) works across contemporary music, free improvisation, chamber music, folk and experimental performance, developing a practice centered on the guitar's extended acoustic and electroacoustic possibilities. A graduate of the Vecchi-Tonelli Conservatory in Modena, he has performed as a soloist and with ensembles including Baratie Guitar Duo, Duo Connasi and Duo Rovi, and has collaborated with musicians including Christian Vasseur and Steve Gibbs. His work has included performances in Italy and Belgium, including at BOZAR in Brussels, and projects employing eight-string classical guitar and multi-point piezo amplification to expand the instrument's timbral and spatial range.

-Squidco 9/14/2026

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


Track Listing:
Related Categories of Interest:

September 2026
Improvised Music
Free Improvisation
European Improvisation, Composition and Experimental Forms
Guitarists, &c.
Trio Recordings
New in Improvised Music
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4DaRecord.


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