This Week’s Favorite: Voxfazer and El Capistan

French guitarist/producer/ambient soundscape artist Voxfazer has created a truly transporting new 29-minute musical piece which you can stream via the link later on in this article. The work is entitled “Through the Echoes of a Complex Architecture Falling to Pieces.” It is simultaneously minimal and engrossingly rich, and well worth setting aside a half hour to close your eyes and drift with. The piece is a dreamy improvisation featuring El Capistan and a DigiTech Polara stereo reverb. Read on to learn more about Voxfazer, his music and gear, and listen to the track. Then, check out the El Capistan settings he used in creating his hypnotic sonic textures. Voxfazer’s rig is pictured below.

Voxfazer tells us that for the past few months he’s been using the rig detailed below for his improvisations, creating “moments with the current mood.” He says: “Took me time to forget the gear and feel free. Now it’s ok.”

Gear Details

• Fender Telecaster 60’s Classic, mostly standard tuning with 11/54 Beefy Slinky Ernie Ball strings
• Dunlop Max-Grip nylon 1.0
• Dunlop Blues Bottle slide medium
• EBow Plus and a cello bow

He says: “The rig changed a lot. I used to put a lot of pedals and a looper. Now I only use a Black Arts Toneworks Ritual and a TC Electronic Spark in front of a Blackstar HT-5 2×10. In the FX loop: El Capistan and a DigiTech Polara.”

He continues: “For these kinds of improvisations, El Capistan is set almost as a looper, but in the spirit of Frippertronics. Notes are repeated, but they die slowly, so a new layer is always on the run. Continuous changes, like waves ending, one after the other but also mixed in the previous and next. Here is the perfect example of what I’m talking about: my favorite setting with El Capistan. I’ve just put this track on Bandcamp. It’s a 29-minute improvisation with El Capistan and DigiTech Polara. Just playing by myself, one shot, in the spirit of Frippertronics tech.”

Listen to “Through the Echoes of a Complex Architecture Falling to Pieces” below:

Check out Voxfazer’s El Capistan settings below:

Voxfazer was born in Paris in 1975, and grew up there. He now lives in the little village of Morzine in the French alps. Several of his evocative photos of Morzine can be viewed below. Voxfazer tells us: “I’ve been a caregiver for the last ten years. I’ve worked with autistics, paralyzed and cancer patients. It has been an incredible human experience and, for sure, it had a real impact on my music. Now I’m back in photography, my first job, my first love.”

What do you think?

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