Let's hear it, ladies and gentlemen, for the slow-moving, high altitude, floating sound of the electric guitar.
Born in the 1930s for parity with drums and horns in jazz bands, greatly expanded in the 1950s and 60s with the discovery of techniques like feedback and overdrive, with the help of psychedelics the humble Spanish guitar was transformed into a vehicle for exploring distant soundworlds—the musical equivalent of the mission of the Starship Enterprise.
The last half of the 20th century brought dozens of electronic "effects"—EQ, compression, echo, reverb, phasing, distortion—and in the 21st century, software algorithms for ever more sophisticated transformations. Today the electronically enhanced guitar can create anything from diffuse ambient tone paintings to epic soundscapes, to something unnamed and unrecognizable...as a guitar.
On this transmission of Hearts of Space, another expansive journey in the ambient guitar universe, on a program called CLOUD GUITARS.
Music is by BUCKETHEAD, JON DURANT, STRATOSPHERE, DAVID HELPLING, CARL WEINGARTEN, RICK COX, JUHA-MATTI RAUTIAINEN, and JEFF PEARCE.
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