Swiss Music Ensemble Sonar to Release New Live Album with Legendary Guest Guitarist David Torn

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Swiss music ensemble Sonar will be releasing their new live album "Live At Moods" with guest soloist/texturalist David Torn on November 16, 2018 on 7d Media. It was recorded live at Moods Jazz Club in Zürich, Switzerland, on May 24th 2018.

Fusing a rigorous minimal concept with the power of a rock band and the sensitivity of a jazz combo, Sonar have quickly gained international reputation for creating a unique blend of music. With their slow-build approach to dramaturgy and avoidance of conventional forms, they focus on collective group efforts and a deeper kind of interaction amongst their members Stephan Thelen (guitar), Bernhard Wagner (guitar), Christian Kuntner (electric bass) and Manuel Pasquinelli (drums). Sonar's music is complex but still visceral, hypnotic but still dynamic. The ground feels as though it's continuously shifting beneath your feet in opposing directions as multiple motifs and rhythms flit about your head, circulating in different orbits.

Sonar was formed in late 2010 and has been on tour in the USA, UK, Canada, Japan, Switzerland, Germany, France, Romania, Liechtenstein and Austria. In 2012, they released their first CD A Flaw of Nature on Nik Bärtsch's Ronin Rhythm Records label. Cuneiform Records released their second full-length CD Static Motion in 2014. Their third album Black Light was recorded and mixed by Peter Gabriel and Tool producer David Bottrill and released by Cuneiform in 2015 on CD and vinyl.

For their 4th full-length studio album Vortex, Sonar invited producer, guitarist and film-composer David Torn to work with them. During the recording, the chemistry between Sonar and David Torn worked so well that Torn was invited to play on every track. David Torn is regarded by many as one of the most influential electronic guitarists of our time. He's worked with many well-known musicians including David Bowie, Madonna (also co-writing), Tim Berne, Jan Garbarek, The Pineapple Thief, Jeff Beck (Grammy-winning production of "Jeff"), Kit Taylor, Mick Karn, David Sylvian, Craig Taborn, Tony Levin, Meshell Ndegeocello, Bill Bruford, Don Cherry, John Legend, Laurie Anderson, k.d. lang, Ryuichi Sakamoto, Matt Mitchell, Tori Amos, Kaki King, Donna Lewis etc.

The stylistic blending of Sonar's precisely structured, polyrhythmic rock music and David Torn's freely improvised, raw and emotional guitar interjections - a trademark of Vortex - is now continued in a live context on the six tracks of the Live at Moods album. There are three pieces from Vortex ("Waves and Particles", "Red Shift" and "Lookface!"), a piece from Static Motion called "Twofold Covering" (the title of the track refers to the fact that the main bass riff of the piece is exactly the same as the guitar riff, just played half as fast and two octaves lower), a completely improvised David Torn solo piece called "For Lost Sailors" and "Tromsø", a piece that Sonar played without David Torn. "Tromsø" is one of the first pieces that Sonar rehearsed together and it is the first track on the band's first album A Flaw of Nature. As a composition, it is a very minimal and austere piece that consists of only six small fragments in 9/8, but it remains one of Sonar's most dramatic and dynamic pieces.