Sonar - 2015 - Black Light

(76:42; Cuneiform Records)

Sonar continues to have a major impact on the avant garde and improvisational areas of music and have been doing so ever since guitarists Stephan Thelen and Bernhard Wagner met when taking part in King Crimson co-leader/guitar icon Robert Fripp's Guitar Craft. They soon recruited bassist Christian Kuntner and drummer Manuel Pasquinelli, taking the name Sonar as an abbreviation of SONic Architecture, alluding to the highly structured, polymetric rock they aspired to construct. This was their third album (there have since been more) and was the first time they worked with an outside producer, David Bottrill (King Crimson, Peter Gabriel, Tool), who recorded them live in the studio (no overdubs).

There is no doubt that King Crimson are a major impact on Sonar, as are the likes of Trey Gunn and Marcus Reuter, while Thelen also references the compositional rigour of Nik Bärtsch, and minimalist composer Steve Reich, but surely the most apposite quote must be where he says realistically this is, "Duane Eddy Meets Jackson Pollock." Polyrhythms, strange time signatures and tuning, this is music which really is quite nothing else around and it is not surprising that Thelen continues to be an in-demand collaborator with likeminded musicians who want to keep pushing the musical boundaries and refusing to accept any type of normality. This is not something to sit and relax to, as it is all about changing our expectations of what music is supposed to be about and never sits comfortably and instead has us on an edge as we know that whatever is coming is something we need to pay close attention to, so we get the best from it. In recent years Sonar have been releasing albums with David Torn, and this 2015 album was the last they recorded (to date) as a quartet and is worthy of investigation by those who want to walk down musical paths less travelled.

Kev Rowland, April 2023

Links:
https://www.sonar-band.ch/
http://www.cuneiformrecords.com/