Atavachron (album): Difference between revisions

==[[Allan Holdsworth’s New Horizons (Downbeat 1985)]]==

On his latest Enigma album, '''Atavachron''', the revolutionary guitarist takes one step further toward Mars with a new and revolutionary piece of hardware, the SynthAxe. The product of several years of painstaking research, the SynthAxe is England’s answer to the guitar synthesizer. But unlike that popular Roland product, the SynthAxe makes no sound of its own. What it is, basically, is a controller for synthesizers, capable of interfacing with Fairlights, Synclaviers, or any MIDI-equipped synths. This thing is strictly high-tech to the max, and Holdsworth feels it positively renders all other guitar synthesizers obsolete.

His new album, '''Atavachron''', admirably adds to his achievements, and reveals Holdsworth’s continuing quest for his own unique sound. Like any true pioneer, Holdsworth is never content with the typical tools of his trade. Indeed, synthesizers and more recently, the MIDI (Musical Instrument Digital Interface), have opened up new avenues of musical exploration for him. You’d think with the myriad possibilities available through these technological little wonders, there’d be enough to keep anyone busy. This Englishman, as you already know (or will understand after reading the following interview), is not just anyone. Nor is his new instrument, the SynthAxe, just any musical instrument: there is the familiar fretboard that can be played by a guitarist, but it is a synthesizer controller, not a guitar.

"It amazed me how many guitar players would pick up the Synthaxe and say, Can you make it sound like a guitar? I’d just stand there, tearing my hair out going, Yeah, yeah, spend $10,000 on something and make it sound like a $500 Strat! [laughs] With the Synthaxe, I just wanted an instrument that I could really control. I didn’t really have it down in the beginning. I’d first used it on ‘'''Atavachron'''’ and I’d waited until I got the Synthaxe before I started writing the music. I now realise that I shouldn’t really have done that. On ‘Sand’ I started using the breath controller and found a way to make it sound like me. I had always wanted to play the saxophone and so the breath controller brought me closer to what I want to do than the guitar can. In many ways the Synthaxe liberated me from that sound, you know, having to use distortion to get sustain. I absolutely hate distortion, but I have to use it to get sustain. It’s like a necessary evil. I hate all of the spurious sounds that are in betwee n the notes when you’ve got your amplifier cranked up. With the Synthaxe there was none of that. It was totally clean and I could take a note out from nothing and blow it out to maximum velocity and bring it all the way down to nothing again. I just wish I could do that on a guitar."

Q: What is your favorite album on your own, as a member and solo project?

A: First of all, the newest one. And others are solo albums; ìWardenclyffe towerîîI.O.U.îîAtavacronîîSandî and ìSecretsî.

[[Category:Solo albums]]