Fuzzy Loner / Fuzzy Friends

About Fuzzy Loner / Fuzzy Friends

Fuzzy Loner began life as a guitar improvisation to try out a new fuzz pedal I had picked up for $30 at Future Music in Los Angeles. As it turned out, the Chinese-made Donner “Stylish Fuzz” sounded huge, and blended quite well with some noises from my Drone Lab, a little four-oscillator synth made by Ghost Wizard that I also picked up at Future Music. I really love that store.

Anyway, I played the piece at a few solo concerts (this experience is where the name comes from), then recorded it using a technique I’d been experimenting with where I’d record the same material multiple times in multiple octaves without a click track then blend the takes together. A Facebook post from my friend Andrew Noseworthy looking for pieces for electric guitar led me to notate it, and a call for scores from The Southland Ensemble led me to say, “hey, this would work well with bowed strings, and you could recreate my multitrack technique live that way.” This is how Fuzzy Loner became Fuzzy Friends.

Though the name changes between the two options in live performance, I think of the piece as existing somewhere between the two versions.