Ethereal I  Liner Notes

"Though I am internationally known as an acoustic guitarist, I was always attracted by the electric guitar as a possibility for playing new music with a new sound. As such, I never wanted to employ the electric guitar based on current trends or fashion; yet I saw endless possibilities for electric guitar. In 1997, I released Echolocation, my first electric guitar album. Using the most advanced digital effect processing technology at that time, I created music and sounds that had never been heard. The reception was not significant, because that music could not be categorized or associated with existing genres or styles at that time. Since then, digital signal processing moved forward, as did new electric guitar-based music. I decided to continue my original concept on an even higher level; both musically and in sound. In this duo project, my partner is Kevin Kastning, who is a real pathfinder in reinventing the acoustic guitar in the music he plays. Ethereal I is our first electric/acoustic album, and is also the first in a new series in this direction. For this project, I used electric guitars and complex live and studio effect processing. Every note of the music was born of vibration of strings which I processed further in many ways. The sound itself became the equal of the music, expressing elements in the stereo field. You can hear motions of notes in various extended spaces, in different space layers which together create perspective in the sound-space, such as a painting. There are so many things happening in this album; both in music and sound. We invite you to be part of this entirely new sound and music reality."

- Sándor Szabó
  Vac, Hungary
  September 2017
 

"When Sándor approached me with the concept of an electric/acoustic album, I was intrigued. Since 2007, we have recorded many duo and a few trio albums, but these have always been completely acoustic projects. I knew with Sandor on electric, our palette would expand into a previously inaccessible direction. Not only our palette, but also our compositional directions.

After the recording sessions for this album were completed, we both knew that it was not a one-off type of record. We plan to record more electric/acoustic projects; hence the "I" in the album title. This is not merely a new record, but the start of a new series."

- Kevin Kastning
  Massachusetts, USA
  October 2017