Stephan Thelen

Fractal Guitar 2 Stephan Thelen

The leader of the marvelous Swiss avant-prog/jazz/something-or-other quartet Sonar, guitarist and composer Stephan Thelen also has a thriving solo career that goes back for years. His latest solo album' Fractal Guitar 2' continues the work begun by it's predecessors 'Fractal Guitar', layering Thelen's minimalist melodies and challenging time signatures with a multitude of guest guitarists from the experimental sphere. The tracks often have as many as five extra string-slingers alongside Thelen himself, including David Torn, Henry Kaiser, Markus Reuter, Jon Durant, Bill Walker, Barry Cleveland, Stefan Huth and Chris Muir on touch guitar, 12-string, various processed, filtered and textural guitars, e-bow and, as well, plain old riffing and soloing. That's not to mention the keyboards and percussion on top of the rhythm section and Thelen's own multi-instrumental contributions. Stephan Thelen might be doing something that cannot be properly labelled, he might be the precursor of the new subgenre: "fractal music".