Recorded in Wilton’s Music Hall, London, 4th November, 2010.

Guitar, Radios, Live Electronics

Keith Rowe (b. 1940 in Plymouth, England) is a free improvising guitarist and painter. He is a founding member of both the influential improvisation group AMM in the mid-1960s (he left the group in 2004) and M.I.M.E.O.

In a career spanning more than fifty years, Rowe has defined a new vocabulary for the guitar, or more accurately, for the “tabletop” guitar, which is combined with a barrage of radios and electronic devices.

Keith Rowe

Recording Notes

A single wax cylinder recording made during Keith Rowe’s soundcheck for the Sound And Music/BBC Radio 3’s Cut & Splice festival at Wilton’s Music Hall in November 2010, where he was preparing for a performance of Earle Brown’s 4 Systems. The sounds heard on this cylinder are made using Short-Wave frequency radio sets, analogue electronic devices and a prepared guitar. For this sound inscription, the phonograph’s recording horn was placed very close to Keith’s stage monitor.