David Fiuczynski is not your typical guitar hero.
Usually playing his double-necked guitar – the lower fretted, the upper fretless – he is capable of making a roaring sound when he wants, but more often he is interested in microtonality. He writes and plays non-western scales that can have exponentially more notes and sounds than the classic 12 tone chromatic octave we all learned in school.
In 2012, RareNoise Records released a statement CD, Planet MicroJam that let us all listen in to what “Fuze” was doing at the Berklee College of Music, as director of its Planet MicroJam Institute. A year earlier, he had been awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship, and had begun working on the project that eventually became Flam! Blam! Pan-Asian MicroJam! Inspired equally by the 20th century French classical composer Olivier Messiaen and innovative beat-maker J Dilla, the seven movements that make up the bulk of the CD allow him to craft an exciting musical statement that connects Messiaen’s birdcall compositions with J DIllas’s beats and field recordings ofl bird sounds, filtered through microtonal sounds recalling Gagaku, the ancient court music of Japan, and other Pan-Asian ingredients. This is not easy listening, but this is rewarding, and at times exciting, listening.
Fiuczynski is joined on his latest release by former Microjam Institute students Utar Artun on microtonal keyboard, Yazhi Guo on suona (Chinese oboe) and percussion, Helen Sherrah-Davies on violin, Jack Sherman on microtonal keyboard, Justin Schornstein on bass and Alex Bailey on drums. And in a reprise of their collaboration on Gamak a few years back, Rudresh Mahanthappa joins on three tracks with his alto sax.
Podcast 529 is my conversation with David Fiuczynski, where he explains his interest in microtonality, how Flam! Blam! came to be, and what he learns from his students at Berklee. Musical selections from the CD include “Flam”, “Loon-y Tunes”, “Oiseaux JDillique", and one tune that Mahanthappa played on, "UiraHappy Jam."
A CD release event for the album will take place at Shapeshifter Lab in New York with special guest Rudresh Mahanthappa on April 14. 
 
 

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