David Fiuczynski at ShapeShifter Lab

Combining ongoing interests in microtonality, jazz harmony, ethnic folk melodies and groove, guitar visionary and Berklee College of Music educator David "Fuze" Fiuczynski has arrived at a global crossroads on Planet MicroJam, his audacious and mesmerizing debut on RareNoiseRecords. Accompanied by current and former students in his program at Berklee (bassists Evan Marien and David Ginyard, keyboardists Evgeny Lebedev and Takeru Yamazaki, drummer Jovol Bell, violinist David Radler), the maverick guitarist stakes out unprecedented territory on this provocative new release, his tenth overall as a leader. Drum masters Jack DeJohnette and Kenwood Dennard appear as special guests on four tracks. ...

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Combining ongoing interests in microtonality, jazz harmony, ethnic folk melodies and groove, guitar visionary and Berklee College of Music educator David "Fuze" Fiuczynski has arrived at a global crossroads on Planet MicroJam, his audacious and mesmerizing debut on RareNoiseRecords. Accompanied by current and former students in his program at Berklee (bassists Evan Marien and David Ginyard, keyboardists Evgeny Lebedev and Takeru Yamazaki, drummer Jovol Bell, violinist David Radler), the maverick guitarist stakes out unprecedented territory on this provocative new release, his tenth overall as a leader. Drum masters Jack DeJohnette and Kenwood Dennard appear as special guests on four tracks.

While microtonal music is nothing new for nontempered instruments like violin or various reed instruments, it is a fairly new phenomenon for guitar. And what Fiuczynski, who was listed in Guitar Player magazine's "101 Unsung Guitar Heroes," is pioneering with the use of his custom-made double-neck (fretless and fretted) axe, his quarter-tone guitar and his trusty whammy bar is nothing short of astonishing.

Fiuczynski's family moved to Germany when he was eight years old and remained until he was 19. After moving to New York in 1990, he apprenticed in the bands of pianist Muhal Richard Abrams, bassist Santi Debriano and drummer Billy Hart before joining Me'Shell Ndegeocello's band, appearing on her acclaimed 1993 debut, Plantation Lullabies. There followed a stint in drummer Ronald Shannon Jackson's Decoding Society before he teamed with keyboardist John Medeski for their cutting edge 1994 collaboration, Lunar Crush, which contained his earliest microtonal experiments.

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