Short Reviews [Stephan Thelen - 2022 - "Fractal Guitar 3"]

As one can tell from the title, Thelen is back with the third in his ‘Fractal Guitar’ series where he provides electric guitar, synthesizer, strings, programming, electric piano, organ, samples, keyboards and Mellotron across five tracks, and is joined by other musicians who play on a few each. At the time of the recording he was working on four different albums, all with different line-ups, and many of those involved are also on here in one way or another while some of the pieces themselves are influenced by tracks on some of the others. His long-time sparring partner Jon Durant, with whom he released ‘Crossings’ as well as working as ‘Fractal Sextet’ is on four of these, as is touch guitar maestro Markus Reuter, but it is only touch bassist Stefan Huth who is on all five. There is a wonderful wall of sound complexity about this album, with repeated loops and melodies, and the different guitars pushing the boundaries of what one would expect from the instrument with touch guitars, fretless, koto, yinyang, tremolo and e-bow just a few of the different effects being employed. When I hear Reuter, I expect him often to be improvising as he has built such a powering reputation in that field, yet here he is in a different place stylistically yet still pushing within the framework provided by Thelen to create something which is compelling. In many ways this is a cross between krautrock and Reuter’s solo work, fully controlled by Thelen to create something that takes the music to new levels. I have heard a few of Thelen’s recent albums in one form or another, and to my ears this is the most complete since the first in this series, as there is an underlying direction and core which allows the musicians to all add their multiple layers yet keep everything moving in the same direction, so the threads join together as opposed to working against each other. This is a great introduction not only to the work of Thelen but what can be achieved when a group of musicians are unafraid to move from the norm and instead want to achieve music which truly is progressing.