Hans Tammen is a composer/guitarist whose music has been described as an alien world of bizarre textures and a journey through the land of unending sonic operations. He discovers hidden sound properties through means of his modified ENDANGERED GUITAR, interactive software programming, stereo and multichannel sound systems, and by working with the room itself. Signal To Noise called his works “...a killer tour de force of post-everything guitar damage”, All Music Guide recommended him: “...clearly one of the best experimental guitarists to come forward during the 1990s.”
His numerous projects include site-specific performances and collaborative efforts with dance, light, video, and theatre, utilizing technology from planetarium projectors to guitar robots and disklavier pianos. His THIRD EYE ORCHESTRA open form compositions for large ensembles are based on meanwhile hundreds of “building blocks” that are constantly rearranged when performed.
His works have been presented on festivals in the US, Canada, Mexico, Russia and all over Europe. He recorded with a wide range of artists such as Herb Robertson, Denman Maroney, Günther Müller, Keith Rowe, Alfred 23 Harth, or Dominic Duval - on labels such as Innova, ESP- DISK, Nur/Nicht/Nur, Creative Sources, Leo Records, Potlatch, Cadence, and Hybrid.
...a monster of a player ...a killer tour de force of post everything guitar
damage. (Larry Nai, Signal To
Noise)
...clearly one of the best experimental guitarists to come forward during the
1990s. (François Couture,
All Music Guide)
Hans Tammen has his own way of playing the guitar... (New York Times)
...one of the most ferociously talented and inventive guitarists to emerge in
the last ten years. His
technique is noisy and percussive, his energy relentless and unstoppable.
(Richard Cochrane, Musings)
White-hot solo guitar work... Recent years have seen a slew of fine free
guitarists emerge..., but
nothing they've done so far packs this kind of punch... (Dan Warburton,
Signal to Noise)
Guitarist Hans Tammen, born in Germany and now resident in New York, has
over the past few years
developed a highly individual and effective method of interfacing his
”endangered” guitar with
electronics (i.e. a laptop)... (Dan Warburton, ParisTransatlantic)
Tammen, an incredibly confounding and visionary improviser on acoustic and
electric guitar... (Steve
Brydges, Copperpress)
Now that Hans Tammen is settled in the States, the German experimentalist
best known for playing
”endangered guitar” is becoming a lightning rod for European improvisers
who share his fearlessness.
(Time Out New York)
Charlie Christian and Les Paul knew they were on to something, something
new and perhaps
revolutionary, but they could hardly have imagined the things that Hans
Tammen does to guitar, and
the sounds he coaxes from it. (Brian Marley, Avant Magazine)
Musique sans concession... la provocante guitare de Hans Tammen. (Luc
Bouquet, ImproJazz)
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