Sonar

Swiss experimental rock quartet Sonar (whose name is definitely a portmanteau of “sonic” and “architecture”) comprise guitarists Stephan Thelen and Bernhard Wagner, bassist Christian Kuntner, and drummer Manuel Pasquinelli. The bandmembers provide a range of skills uniquely suitable for creating Sonar’s exact and rhythmically complicated yet large and streamlined post-minimalist sound, harmonically idiosyncratic using the guitars and bass tuned in tritones (an period provided the Latin name diabolus in musica — the devil in music — during middle ages instances). The California-born Thelen can be a solid admirer from the early- to middle-’70s (Starless and Bible Dark) and early- to middle-’80s (Self-discipline) editions of Ruler Crimson, and participated using the Venezuela-born Wagner in Robert Fripp’s Acoustic guitar Craft workshops in the ’90s. Thelen (Sonar’s primary composer) also examined classical electric guitar, and he gained a Ph.D. in mathematics in the School of Zurich. Being a single musician, Wagner performs and information using innovative live looping procedures; he’s also a software program engineer. Kuntner and Pasquinelli are individuals in a multitude of rings and tasks, and both are previous students on the School of Arts in Bern. Inspired by Fripp’s arpeggiated and riff-centric post-minimalist buildings, guitarists Thelen and Wagner cemented the idea of their own music group in Switzerland in the summertime of 2010, and kept their initial rehearsals with bassist Kuntner and drummer Pasquinelli in November of this calendar year. Sonar performed their initial gigs in Zurich and Bern in June 2011, and documented their debut record, A Flaw of Character, reside in the studio room at Bern’s Swiss Jazz College two months afterwards. A Flaw of Character premiered on pianist Nik Bärtsch’s Ronin Tempo imprint in Apr 2012. Not allowing their momentum flag (rather suitable considering the continuous propulsiveness of their music), Sonar had been back on the Swiss Jazz College in June 2012 to record (once again reside in the studio room) their following discharge, the four-track EP Skeleton Groove, that was released by Thelen’s RepTile imprint in November — the same month that Sonar documented their next record live at Zurich’s Bazillus Membership. Live at Bazillus premiered digitally by RepTile in Dec 2012 (incidentally, almost a year prior to the jazz place using a 40-calendar year history shut its doors going back time). April and could of 2013 discovered Sonar on the European tour offering times in Switzerland, Germany, and Britain, along with four times of documenting — once more reside in the studio room — at Sea Sound in Giske, Norway. The classes led to the music noticed for the band’s third full-length recording, Static Movement, released from the Cuneiform label in January 2014.