Legendary guitarist Bill Orcutt has given a home to several experimental solo guitarists via his label, Palilalia Records. Exciting, unique releases from artists such as Shane Parish, Cyrus Pireh, and Orcutt himself have made the label a fitting destination for innovative guitar players who enjoy occupying a space of endless experimentalism with no boundaries. The latest title from Palilalia is no different; this time, it is from German avant-garde master Olaf Rupp.
Fuzzy Logic was created in the spring of 2018 over four weeks as Rupp prepared for two solo concerts opening for Swans frontman Michael Gira in Berlin and Hamburg. “Making recordings has always been a good way for me to prepare for bigger, important concerts,” Rupp explains in the album’s press notes. “In this case it was especially important to me to avoid the stylistic constraints between free jazz and the so-called ‘improvised music close to new music.” Rupp adds that he also didn’t want to completely give in to the “modal melancholy” that has drawn him to Gira’s guitar work that he first heard in Swans years ago. These parameters—or perhaps, the lack of parameters—provided the influence for what would become this new record.
Fuzzy Logic combines elements of flamenco with the influence of the late guitarist Derek Bailey, an important figure in the free improvisation movement. On the subject of flamenco, nobody will mistake Rupp’s playing here with flamenco pioneers like Paco de Lucía or Niño Ricardo. The sound is distinctly dark, distorted, and fractured. The menacing threat of distortion that opens “Insolent Coagulation” is an appropriate preview of the hour to come. Rupp picks, strums, and thrashes his way through the song, and follows that with the meditative hum of “Hunsrück Forest”, as sparse notes and harmonics give way to insistent strumming, creating a distinct, bare-bones tension.
Spread out across two LPs, Fuzzy Logic takes advantage of this by giving individual songs generous run times. The longest track, “Drizzly Muddy Trail”, has Rupp exploring a variety of techniques and sounds with the guitar, at times resembling field recordings and towers of distortion that sound like doom-laden, cacophonous explosions as the song appears to tear apart at the seams. The title track is particularly inspiring, as it begins with chest-rattling low-end rumbles that eventually rise up the neck into shimmering, cathartic noise.
Within these alien soundscapes, there is what Rupp’s Bandcamp page calls “modal angst”, which takes the listener to previously undiscovered territory, and careful, repeated listens will be rewarded, especially as patterns become clearer and more distinct over time. The structure of the songs benefits from Rupp’s improvisational techniques. Once again, the length of the songs allows Rupp not only to improvise and build but also to shape-shift, as each track travels along several musical avenues.
Fuzzy Logic is yet another fascinating release in the Palilalia Records catalog, and Olaf Rupp’s work here is impressive and deeply satisfying. He acknowledges that jazz fans might call it noise, and rock fans will struggle to find a consistent beat. According to Rupp, “unrootedness is also a power, a gift, a way”.