Hans Tammen | Germany

guitar

Hans Tammen works with a wide collection of mechanical devices on his "endangered" guitars, and uses an interactive software of his own design to rework his sounds in realtime. His music has been described as a journey through the land of unending sonic operations, his playing as reverse engineering of the guitar.
Projects include site-specific performances and collaborative efforts with dance, light or video. His works have been presented in the US, Canada, Mexico, Russia and all over Europe. Since the 1970s influenced by Sonny Sharrock’s fiery and energetic playing, he became also inspired by the music and playing styles of Pete Cosey, Bitches Brew's John McLaughlin, Attila Zoller, Jimi Hendrix, Derek Bailey, Fred Frith und Keith Rowe. All Music Guide recommended him: "...clearly one of the best experimental guitarists to come forward during the 1990s." (François Couture)
His music is documented on over a dozen CDs, on labels like Nur/Nicht/Nur, Leo Records, Potlatch, Cadence, or Hybrid. Besides his current trio “Shadow Puppies” with Nick Didkovsky (guitar) and Kurt Ralske (video) his ensembles are often located partly in the US and in Europe, e.g. his east/west German collaboration with dancer Fine Kwiatkowski, the “Extended Guitars” quartet (in the last version with Erhard Hirt, Nick Didkovsky and Keith Rowe), the trio “mechanique[s]” with Martin Speicher (bassclarinet) and Dafna Naphtali (voice & live sound processing), or the trio with Ricardo Arias (balloons) and Günter Müller (electronics).