From the album Energy, reviewed by Barry Cleveland: http://www.guitarplayer.com/article/goh-kurosawa-energy-cd-review-with-audio/153314

Goh Kurosawa: "Can't Help Falling In Love"

Dave Hunter used Lollar's new Gold Foil pickups when recording this instrumental version of his tune "Shadows in the Well." Says Dave, "Lollar's new Gold Foil pickups are great for gnarly garage rock, as you would expect given their heritage. The unexpected bonus, though, is that they also stand up extremely well to high-gain and fuzz pedal usage without feedback howl."

Lollar Gold Foil Pickups: Hear 'em Now!

Gerald Gradwohl: As It Is

Chick's Chums

Herd of Instinct: The Secret of Fire

Totem: Genosong

Elliott Sharp: Momentum Anomaly 5 Excerpts

Bill Horist: Our Scars of Braille Withheld

David Cooper Orton and Steve Uccello: Spanning Gyre

Bohemian Rhapsody

Master of Puppets

The Great Southern Trendkill

GhostEditJA 1

The Normalizer2 Project
By Barry Cleveland
 “It started in 2001, when I had the idea to write music to one of my drum solos,” says drummer extraordinaire Marco Minnemann (UKZ, Paul Gilbert, the Aristocrats, Mike Keneally). That became Normalizer, and a few years later I recorded another, 52-minute drum solo that I called Normalizer2. Alex Machacek decided to compose music to it, followed by Trey Gunn, Mike Keneally, and others. My drum solo became the pizza dough for everyone's personal toppings.” Minnemann also recorded his own version, on which he played multiple instruments, including guitar. His gear included a ’70 Telecaster, a ’80 Stratocaster, a ’78 Hamer Sunburst, and a ’90s Danelectro Baritone. He played through a modified Marshall JCM800, a Mesa/Boogie V-Twin, and various software models. Eight Normalizer2 albums have been recorded thus far, all of them quite different. Here, we spotlight the six Normalizer2 albums that were recorded by guitarists.

Mike Keneally
Evidence of Humanity
Gear: ’88 Fender Clapton Stratocaster. 2005 custom koa Charvel. Various Taylor electrics and acoustics.
Process: “I was working on Scambot 1 simultaneously with Evidence of Humanity, and I wanted to approach them completely differently. John Czajkowski lives a half-hour from me and he made his studio, his engineering abilities, and all his amps and other gear available. Whenever I had time, I’d go there and have at it. I had no music prepared in advance. We’d listen to small portions of the drum track and I’d quickly compose or improvise something along with it, then orchestrate that portion of music—continue until complete! Marco’s stream-of-consciousness solo was very comfortable territory for me, and his endless flow of amazing ideas prompted all kinds of styles and techniques to emerge.”

Trey Gunn
Modulator
Gear: Warr 10-string and 8-string guitars. 11-string Godin Glissentar. Kramer Turbulence R-36. 
Process: “Modulator is the most challenging recording I have ever made. Sometimes the drum parts were insane, like 8 over 9. The object was to make it appear that Marco had played to me, not vise verse. As a guitar player, I had to fit tightly with the drum parts, but also retain a loose feel. A combination of fully composed lines and open improvisation fulfilled that. I recorded in Apple Logic Pro, and each completed section would be put into the big timeline in WaveBurner. The hardest part was re-writing adjacent sections that didn’t transition well. I had to re-compose the endings and beginnings of ten different sections to make them sound convincing, which often meant using a similar guitar approach over the end of one section and into the next. Sometimes I would edit my playing as if the audio were a giant score, but then need to replay everything once I had found the right parts.”

Alex Machacek
24 Tales
Gear: Bill DeLap custom. Godin Freeway SA. Steinberger GM4T. Yamaha Acoustic. Fractal Audio Axe-Fx Ultra. Line 6 DL4 (for looping). Apple Logic Pro plug-ins. Ebow. Slide.
Process: “My main goal was to create the illusion that the drum part was played to the music and not the other way around. When I started working on 24 Tales, I had no intention to ever reproduce any of the material in a live setting, so I didn’t limit myself in terms of layers and overdubs—and that actually enabled me to approach the task more from a composer than a guitar player perspective. The beauty of ‘recomposing’ is that you can put the musical magnifying glass on details of the existing material that otherwise might be overlooked or lost—and trust me, there are lots of ‘details’ in Marco’s solo!
 
Jason Sadites
Behind the Laughter
Gear: Michael Tuttle Custom Bent Top. 
Process: “I worked within Cubase 5 and used the Time Warp tool to create a tempo map and to assign time signatures to the different ‘sections.’ After that, I looked for drum sections that seemed to stand out as individual ‘songs,’ and then able to begin composing. To avoid the need to replay guitar parts at a later date, I recorded all my parts monitoring through Native Instruments Guitar Rig 4, while simultaneously recording a clean direct signal so I could re-amp later through a Dr. Z Monza with a Wampler Hot Wired pedal using a Radial X-Amp. Composing took about eight hours for every one-to-two minutes of music, and was completed over an approximately six-week period.”

Phi Yaan-Zek
Dance With the Anima
Gear: Fender American Deluxe Stratocaster Ash and Line 6 Variax (electric sitar) into a Fender Princeton for clean tones. Ibanez Custom RG550 into a Mesa/Boogie Nomad 100 for distorted tones. Fylde Falstaff steel-string. K Yairi classical.
Process: “I composed the bulk of the music pretty quickly, just jamming to the drums with an acoustic to sketch out the main chord progressions, melodies, and riffs. The idea was to trust my initial inspirations to capture the essence of my compositional style. Then, I spent a lot of time arranging and orchestrating the parts to give the music depth and atmosphere so that it sounded like the drums had been added to my music. Nailing some of the guitar performances, especially rhythmically, proved to be incredibly challenging!”

John Czajkowski
West ZooOpolis
Gear: Ernie Ball Steve Morse. Ernie Ball pedal-steel. Gretsch 6120. Suhr Classic T. Fender Custom Shop B-bender. Danelectro Baritone. Goodall Concert classical. Egnater preamps/amp. Port City 4x12 OS cab with Scumbacks and Jensons. Eventide Eclipse. Fractal Audio Axe-Fx.
Process: “After recording a few extemporaneous ideas across the drum performance, I studied and beat-mapped the whole thing to get as much of the intellectual work and transcribing behind me as possible. Although painstaking, that freed me up to compose more intuitively—placing me smack dab in my fun guitaristic happy place. As the album is dedicated to my Navy SEAL brothers, I sought a funky Cold War high desert spy vibe with playful animal-themed tunes.”


Jason Sadites: "The Front" from Behind The Laughter

For more information on the Normalizer2 Project visit http://www.normalizer2.com


Mike Keneally: "Kaa" (excerpt) from Evidence of Humanity

Michael Manring & Kevin Kastning: 10 Internal Meanings And The Weight Of Cathedrals

Here are tracks from a fresh batch of CDs worthy of your consideration. —Barry Cleveland, Guitar Player

Shelter From The Storm

Julie Slick: "6"

David Torn: A Sigh at Barriers

Blackmore's Night: The Moon Is Shining (Somewhere Over the Sea)

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