At NSJ in Rotterdam I will be playing the Grand Chapman Stick with electronics extension. That will happen on July 8 but much earlier than so another big thing is about to rock my world; I just got word from Japan that my new fretless electric harp guitar is about to ship! Designed by the the great Tim Donahue himself that has been playing this wonderful instrument since 1984. Myself, I ruined my first electric guitar in 1978 by defretting it in a clumsy way. Since then I have defretted two more guitars “clumsy but good enough” searching for that special sound I keep hearing in my head from my future self – hopelully I will get there soon. Over time I came to realize that a good fretless really has to be built from the ground up as a fretless and I tried to buy a Vigier Sufragette from France. Luckily they never answered my emails and it turned out I got a Stick instead and stayed with my old clumsily defretted fretless guitar wrecks. By playing the Chapman Stick for two years I learned how much more fun it can be to use both your hands independently. Playing two-handed opened up a lot of new musical inspiration, I became able to enter poly rhythm territories traditionally dominated by instruments like the piano, harp and drum kit. So when I heard that Tim Donahue is starting up manufacturing of his harp guitar I just had to get one! A really good fretless guitar for tapping plus six harp strings for plucking by the other hand, all in the same instrument and instantly playable!

A closed corporate Stick concert is coming up in late May and in June it’s time for the the Blekinge Jazz & World Music Camp. I just finished the second post production media music album for AMG Scandinavia and will now put more time into mixing the second album with The Erdem Helvacıoğlu and Per Boysen Duo. BTW, the TogaMan GuitarViol Erdem plays is also a fantastic instrument. TogaMan and Stick is such a perfect sonic match! Last piece of news is that I’m about to play in London on October 2 (harp guitar and interactive electronics).

If you click the source link there are more videos of many other artists. Among them many of my own favorites, like for example Biosphère and Supersilent.

May 21-22 Fuzz Guitar Show
Stick Guitar Looping clinic with Per Boysen. Sunday 4 PM.

May 6 Audiovisuella Loopar
Full day + night seminar + party. Falun, Sweden, Music University:
Samuel ”LOOP-TOK” Andersson Multimedial LOOP-artist, Tellef Kvifte Professor musikvetenskap Oslo Universitet också verksam i ensemblen ”Lucky-Loops”, Per Boysen Föreläsare, skribent och LOOP-artist, Joel Dittrich Audiovisuell guru från Klubb-scenerna i Stockholm och Berlin, Anders K Friberg Docent och forskare inom (TMH) tal musik och hörsel vid KTHJ.

Latest YouTube video clips

Nach dem ersten Festival dieser Art 2008 im Loft zu Köln wird dies das zweite größere Livelooping-Festival in Deutschland sein. Zehn Solo-Livelooper bzw. Bands aus dem In- und Ausland präsentieren jeweils eine halbe Stunde lang ihre ganz individuelle Loop-Musik-Variante. Es gibt praktisch keine Umbaupausen – 5 Stunden Livelooping-Musik am Stück!

Dabei werden Ambient-Klänge und Drones zu hören sein, aber auch Gitarrengrooves, abstrakte Klänge aus dem Computer, groovende One-Man-Bands sowie Gesangsloops.

March 25, 26, 27:
Erdem Helvacıoğlu & Per Boysen, Paris,
PRESENCES électronique 2011.
We’ll be doing an eight channel surround concert on the 26th, sharing the stage with Jim O’Rourke (US, tape), Rafael Toral + Cesar Burago (Portugal, performance), Supersilent (Norway, performance. Arve Henriksen – Trumpet, Voice, Drums, Electronics. Helge Sten – Electronics, Guitars, Keyboards. Stale Storlokken – Keyboards, Synths, Electronics)

World Rhythm Fest
February 12:
Afrotronics, Östersund (north of Sweden)

January 21:
Per Boysen, Göteborg (west of Sweden),
Solo Festival
Exciting concept to put on a two day festival with solo performers! Dancers, jugglers, musicians, poets, actors…

Exceptions are two tracks that were recorded later as a studio based long distance collaboration: Counterpoint (4) where Per plays the Chapman Stick and Bird’s View (7) where Per plays the Electric Guitar while Fabio doubles on Shakers, the Cajun and the Thelevi.

Mixing and Mastering: Per Boysen
Album and track artwork by Fabio Anile.

Unexpected is digitally distributed all over the Internet, but I would advice anyone to check it out at Bandcamp because that’s the only digi music web shop I know of that allows specific artwork for each song of the albums.

Sub City 2064 was among Editor’s Top Three CDs in Guitar Player magazine’s september issue of 2010. It’s a big honor to be mentioned together with icons like Stockhausen, Hassell, Eno, NIN and Pink Floyd!

I made this music because Erdem inspired me in our collaborative duet experiment and also because I’ve always wanted music like this; music that doesn’t restrict itself by a particular “style”, “instrument” or “scene”, music that exists for no other reason than that someone actually loved it enough to make a recording so that other people may enjoy the same experience.

Powerful live sound design options

Another thing I like with the Stick is the powerful live sound design options you get by having two fretboards going out through separate outputs – meaning you can treat them with two different effect chains. I plug those two outputs into a laptop running Mainstage.

As a matter of fact I did use my Steppophononic Looperformer at one track on the recently released duo album Sub City 2064 with Erdem Helvacıoğlu. Here’s a link to a track where I use that electronic design to play both the flute pads and the synth sequence simultaneously.

Musical instrument of three dimensional performance

Note how three musical lines are created at the same time; (1) flute melodies, (2) chords layered by livelooping overdubbed long flute notes and (3) matching arpeggios (instantly snagged flute sample, live sequenced and sent through beat synced filters). All three parts following my harmonic on-the-fly improvisation.

Sharing my vision according to Creative Commons

This version of my Steppohonic Looperformer is like a pilot test. I mocked it up with Plogue Bidule and Expert Sleeper’s Crossfade Loop Synth Effect. Not technically optimal, but musically it worked well enough to be used on this record. I published the functionality design idea under a CC license so if you are a programmer you are allowed to steal the idea to create a plugin or whatever. Here is the link to my presentation.