ENTOMIC The Invisible String Quartet

Dave Draper, guitar, prepared gtr, electronics, digital delays/samplers. SLAMCD 210

TRACKS:

1 Insect flak 5m 19s

2 Traffic jam 8 27

3 Marsh ague 16 31

4 Reincarnation 9 13

5 21cm band 6 06

6 Bee-line 6 37

7 Ephemera 6 28

8 Lagos holiday 7 49

Recorded at The Pantry, London, 21 - 25 Oct 1994.

Total guitar folded in on itself and delicately placed in your speakers. Live with no overdubs or samples The Invisible String Quartet build up deep throbs into electronic chicada noise. It's no dronefest though. Lovers of melody can goof off on the almost funky 'Lagos Holiday'. File under perfect animation music - because normal rules don't apply. JM

AUDION Autumn 1995 Having seen Dave Draper's mythical invisible STring Quartet at Electronica, I was certainly eager to hear what his CD was like! I've always been fascinated with guitars and devices, and what Dave Draper did was quite extraordinary. So, would the CD be as radical? Yes, and some! Scarcely on some pieces would you even realise this is guitar music, as all manner of rotating and cycling sounds, juddering and scuttling around, add up to make something closer to electroacoustic music. Some of this is quite different to what I heard him do live though, like Traffic Jam which feels more like Hans Reichel caught up in a melange of looping patterns, and then there's the expansive and confused textures of the 16 minute Marsh Ague. From the realms of Robert Fripp, through the most radical experiments of Fred Frith, Dave Draper offers a startling melange of melodic textures, abstract rhythm and dissonance. Alan Freeman