Stone Echidna
Stone Echidnais a duo project comprised of guitarist David Brown (aka candlesnuffer) and trumpeter Reuben Lewis. Steeped in introspection and deep focus, Stone Echidna invites the listener to embrace the unfamiliar and immerse themselves in a dramatic and strangely beautiful musical landscape.
The duo sprung from an initial fascination with the pairing of fully prepared guitar and the breathiness extended techniques elicited from acoustic trumpet. From the group’s birth, and at odds with their staple acoustic sounds, Brown and Lewis utilised minimal electronics through small amplifiers to provide an extra pair of accompanying textural outputs. Then, across a somewhat short duration, the electronic component of the group sound grew exponentially to equal and rival the acoustic elements, while in addition, a semi-acoustic, tenor guitar was added to the sonic vocabulary, allowing the guitar preparations to play a more secondary role.
Their debut limited-edition LP, ‘the disagreeable subject of Varèse’s father’, was released to correlate with the publication by Bloomsbury Press of the academic edition; ‘The Aesthetics of Imperfection in Music and the Arts; Spontaneity, Flaws and the Unfinished’, a collection of essays and interviews centred round the notion of the accidental in creativity and edited by Andy Hamilton and Lara Pearson. Both members of Stone Echidna have made contributions to the publication, firstly on Brown’s behalf in the form of an essay that explains the slow gestation of his improvisatory and extended instrumental techniques, and secondly through an open interview conducted by Lewis with Brown that elucidates the processes and historical background of the recording of ‘the disagreeable subject of Varèse’s father’ and more.
Reuben Lewis: trumpet, amplifiers, objects & pedals.
David Brown: semi-acoustic prepared guitar, low strung tenor guitar, amplifiers & pedals.
