Olaf Rupp

acoustic nylon string guitar solo
electric guitar solo

a new solo album with mostly acoustic guitar tracks and some electric guitar was released January 2012 on:

GLIGG records

Olaf Rupp started at the age of twelve as an autodidact to play what might be called today Improvised Music. His way of holding the guitar in an upright position is inspired by chinese Pipa players. He refined some playing techniques like rasgueados, arpeggios and tremolos in such a way that they can be used for overtone and cluster effects to create new, "virtual" sounds. He sometimes describes his music as "analog granular synthesis" or "sonic pointillism" because the intrinsic colour of every note or a group or notes is more important than the melodic or harmonic burden we may or may not put on them. He played among others with Lol Coxhill, Michael Wertmüller, John Zorn, Joe Williamson, Paul Lovens, Butch Morris und Tony Buck. Five solo albums on FMP, GROB and GLIGG.

press echoes:

"One of the most intense and focused solo electric guitar recitals that we've ever heard."
DOWNTOWN MUSIC GALLERY

"Olaf Rupp is like no guitarist I’ve ever heard before. (...) The music he creates from his guitar is made of many fleet notes in atonal runs, alternating with sonic clusters, as he seems to approach the guitar almost pianistically. If you have heard Cecil Taylor playing his intense brief improvisations, then you have the idea here."
CADENCE MAGAZINE

"Alles ist „meisterhaft komponiert in improvisierter Musik“."
JAZZ PODIUM

"Olaf Rupp's sound world is every bit as singular as that of both Derek Bailey and Hans Reichel, and his musical personality is every fathom as deep."
ALL ABOUT JAZZ

"Olaf Rupp has been altering notions of what acoustic and electric improvised guitar music can sound like for more than 20 years."
DUSTED MAGAZINE

"It harnesses the buzz of reality."
THE WIRE

"Nun ist Virtuosität auch eine Falle – hier aber liegt Rupps besondere musikalische Leistung, denn die lawinenhaften Tonkaskaden, die unter anderen Fingern blenden würden, schon gerade wenn sie so präzise und konzentriert atonal splittern, purzeln und dramatisch rollen wie hier, räumen einen hier auf wie ein entspanntes Sprudelwellenbad."
DE:BUG