Stephan Thelen – Fractal Guitar 2 (MoonJune 2021)

Like a place I’ve been before, Stephan Thelen‘s music retains that level of intimacy to my ear, whatever he plays. Exploration of rythmic fractals are, from the perspective of the Swiss guitarist, a neverending source of looking glasses and revolving doors that hint at a direction and take another. No surprise that Fractal Guitar 2, the sequel to the 2019 album on MoonJune Records, starts with a similar pattern with a the same line-up of incredibly high level of musicianship, but then veers in another place.

Stephan Thelen has built himself a reputation of maestro of the six strings after the outputs with genre-breaking band Sonar and an idiosyncratyc use of the guitar tuning and effects. Like the predecessor, Fractal Guitar 2 is a manifesto of the state of the art of progressive guitar in the world. Exploration of ambience and ritual repetitions, an extensive use of clean guitar layers of polyrhythmic progressions through hypnotic slow-tempos and ambiguous tonal vamps. This time he is joined at the guitar duties by David Torn, whom can now be considered a fifth member of Sonar, Henry Kaiser, Jon Durant, Barry Cleveland, Chris Muir and Bill Walker. But that’s Markus Reuter at the touch guitar and acting as producer to be the secret power. Add to them Andy West and Stefan Huth at bass, Fabio Anile at the electric piano, Nik Bärtsch Ronin‘s former percussionist Andi Pupato, while Manuel Pasquineli and Andy Brugger divide the duties behind the drum kit.

The combination of odd metered bars creating a comforting polyrhythmic net are usual in Thelen‘s compositions, and Cosmic Krautrock follows that pattern as well. But if any reference to the first album, to the style brought up in the earlier record, Stephan Thelen indicates it was not on purpose. Indeed everything moves in a different direction, where the krautrock element is evidently the secret ingredient here and there. And that’s the break around the minute and half mark in the first track that repurposes everything, with the synths creating a sinuous and danceable groove. The slow-tempo development of the bars, again an usual element in Thelen‘s music, elicits the masterful work by Andy Brugger and the impressive layering of soundscaping arrangements. A sudden break of the drumming after four minutes propels the medidative and aerial elements at the top of its notch. Cosmic vibes, scratchy solos, krautrock beats all coalesce in a colourful and delicate way. That’s at almost the eight minute that an orchestra of percussions and Aarset-like soundscape prepare the ground for the subtle comeback of the initial time, disguised in a variation and for a very intense and emotional processed guitar solo.

Following the same modus operandi in the first record, Thelen prepared multiple basic tracks and shared with the guests on this recording, eventually stripping out, moving, cutting and pasting parts and solos. The level of musicianship and avantgardness is such extreme, that it is often hard to disguise, even through the booklet notes, which solo is played by whom. With occasionally scratchy or very raw and agressive bursts, ranging in contribution from few notes to shred like, the guests on Fractal Guitar 2 contribute glancing at different shades of the open-ouvre created by Stephan Thelen.

The intricating bars arrangement and the extensive dialogue between layers of polyrhythms and ambient soundscapes is deeply explored in the album’s eponymous track. The melody is slippering and clean guitars answer each other in complex rhythmic counterpoints. That eventually sustains the delicate soundscapes and a sense of subtle elation. In the 60s and the 70s people played odd rhythms very spastically -says Thelen. But in the 80s, musicians started playing polyrthms in a very natural way, with syncopation. When I listened to Nik Bärtsch, that was very inspiring to me. I wanted to apply them in rock. 

Mercury Transit is a crescendo of pulsating kraut synths that builds up until the mesmerizing bowed guitar chorus by Barry Cleveland and the solo by Jon Durant, a frantic assault of bit-music filtered guitar notes. The initial riddle of accents in the clean guitar opening theme in Ladder to the Stars creates again another unhurried slow crescendo, allowing soothing delays and caressing soundscapes to flow freely and joyously. An elegant layering of counterpoints conjures with the percussions of Andi Pupato and the occasional sparse notes by the guitar guests. Celestial Navigation is intense and stark, with an unexpected bridge around the seventh minute mark: a rhythmic break suddenly erupts in some poisoning bars made of hard-driven power chords. The ending track Point of Inflection is a faster tempo, with an aggressive backbeat that initially favors David Torn‘s revolving glitches and then morphs in an unexpected descending progression fired by a wall of guitars in the second part.

Stephan Thelen remembers that the fractal guitar concept started long ago, since his days in the earlier band. For me it started with the band Radio Osaka: the singer asked me to do a fractal guitar thing and he meant me to do something with long delay. That was the starting point. One guitar tone can create a bigger picture. Fractal Guitar 2, similarly as the first recording, will be followed by a remixes album, that will feature also bass player and legendary producer Bill Laswell as well as guitarist Tim Motzer. Interestingly, Thelen might be following the path of Nils Petter Molvær: the Norwegian trumpeter explored first in the jazz industry the practice to create original and remix albums together at the start of the 2000s. But first and foremost, he coined a new way of considering the remix music on the same level of the original recording in jazz. Stephan Thelen might be doing something similar, with the only difference he is moving in a niche that can’t be properly labelled. We might want to use “fractal music” as label.

Stephan Thelen

Fractal Guitar 2

01 COSMIC KRAUTROCK 14:08
Markus Reuter: touch guitar U8, soundscapes
Jon Durant: electric guitar
David Torn: electric guitar, live looping
Bill Walker: electric guitar, live looping, feedback
Stefan Huth: touch guitar AU8 (bass)
Andi Pupato: percussion
Andy Brugger: drums
Stephan Thelen: electric guitar, choppy organ, granular synth, programming

02 FRACTAL GUITAR 2 7:58
Markus Reuter: touch guitar U8
Jon Durant: fretless guitar
Bill Walker: lap steel
Barry Cleveland: 6 & 12-string guitar, filtered guitar
Stefan Huth: touch guitar AU8 (bass)
Andi Pupato: percussion
Manuel Pasquinelli: drums
Stephan Thelen: electric guitar, fractal guitar, formant swell

03 MERCURY TRANSIT 12:03
Jon Durant: electric guitar, VCS3 guitar
Barry Cleveland: bowed guitar, revox loops
Markus Reuter: soundscapes
Stefan Huth: touch guitar U8 (bass)
Fabio Anile: keyboards
Andi Pupato: percussion
Andy Brugger: drums
Stephan Thelen: electric guitar, e-bow, particles, keyboards, programming

04 LADDER TO THE STARS 14:54
Henry Kaiser: electric guitar
Chris Muir: electric guitar, live looping
Markus Reuter: touch guitar U8, soundscapes
Jon Durant: filtered and sliced cloud guitar
Fabio Anile: electric piano
Andy West: bass guitar
Andi Pupato: percussion
Manuel Pasquinelli: drums
Stephan Thelen: electric guitar, keyboards

05 CELESTIAL NAVIGATION 12:29
Markus Reuter: touch guitar U8, soundscapes
Jon Durant: fretless guitar
Bill Walker: electric guitar, lap steel
Stefan Huth: touch guitar U8 (bass)
Andi Pupato: percussion
Manuel Pasquinelli: drums
Stephan Thelen: electric guitar, e-bow, particles, keyboards, programming

06 POINT OF INFLECTION 12:12
David Torn: electric guitar, live looping
Jon Durant: fretless guitar, cloud guitar
Barry Cleveland: 6 &12-string guitars, bowed guitar, chopped guitar, fuzz orchestration
Markus Reuter: touch guitar U8, soundscapes
Stefan Huth: touch guitar S8 (bass)
Andi Pupato: percussion
Andy Brugger: drums
Stephan Thelen: electric guitar, granular synth

Produced by Markus Reuter & Stephan Thelen.

Executive Producer: Leonardo Pavkovic for Moonjune Records

All tracks written by Stephan Thelen except: “Ladder to the Stars” written by Stephan Thelen & Fabio Anile and “Point of Inflection” written by Stephan Thelen & Barry Cleveland.

Recorded at various locations across Europe and North America between November 2019 and July 2020.