The Illusionist and other stories
I set out to write a set of fourteen acoustic guitar songs (which I did) but in the process the album transformed itself into something much more. Some of these are very personal stories, There's a lot of ebow and vocal harmony arrangement here.
Welcome to my site.
A few years ago I wrote an album and decided to gig it and a load of other stuff I'd written. I did this using unusual bass techniques to create bass and vocal only pieces, I used some prerecorded stuff from my album and played and sang along to it and I used loops together with various effects and sometimes played guitar and bass in alternation. The main thing was to see what was possible for one person playing live.
It was well received by some people but was a lot of work and the amount of gear I carried together with the setting up meant too much room for error.
I've since written two more albums and I've become interested in software looping as opposed to the hardware loop station I was previously using. My approach to looping is not as improvisational as some other players'. It involves a (usually) complex set of prewritten commands that when triggered from a foot controller gives a great deal of control over loops and effects. All the sounds are created using just the bass and my voice.
Anyway, you can listen to and watch some of my stuff here (go to the appropriate page on the left). There are excerpts from my three albums together with video from gigs I've done showing my live looping.
I hope you enjoy my stuff. If you have any comments you can leave them at pete@petemcgann.com
You can download my music at cdbaby.com or if you want to buy an album then please contact me at the email address above.
I wrote this album a few years ago. It features a lot of the bass and vocal only stuff that I was trying out at the time. Most of the tracks use altered tunings on bass and guitar and there's my usual ebow and vocal work
A lot of the other stuff that wasn't on an album ended up as a set of live recordings which are now on an album. I've also got some video which you can access from the menu on the left.
