strands of lunar light is an otherworldly yet minimalist and hypnotic exploration of spectral microtonality for multiple guitars, played by Norwegian, Berlin-based experimental guitarist-composer Fredrik Rasten and Belgian experimental guitarist Ruben Machtelinckx (who have collaborated before on Machtelinckx’ Porous Structures II, Aspen Edities, 2024), both playing on two electric guitars and one acoustic guitar. The album was recorded at the same time as Porous Structures II was at the same studio, Studio Pyramide in Brussels in August 2023.
Rasten says that he envisioned the music «as emanating from a moon inhabited by otherworldly life forms and ecosystems; these sounds as evoking the moon’s topographies, beings, lunar rivers, and strands of light — as if this moon’s essence were itself sonic, vibrational matter». As on previous albums of Rasten, his compositional and guitar practice is driven by a deep interest in the sonic details of harmony and microtonality, with just intonation as a main resource and entry point. strands of lunar light continue to develop and explore just intonation realized on guitars.
Therefore, musically and acoustically, strands of lunar light depart from a set of tones corresponding to a confined harmonic series segment of a very low fundamental frequency: 5.15 hertz. Through twelve continuous sections, each employing various methods of activating openly tuned guitar strings, the music is sculpted from the twenty-four pitches corresponding to harmonics 24 through 47 of this fundamental frequency.
This otherworldly music reveals a brighter but elusive vibrational realm, as if time loses its course, and floats within disorienting overtones and deeply resonant statis. Maybe this is how a lunar-sonic existence sounds.
The suggestive cover artwork is by Canadian, Berlin-based artist Mareike Yin-Yee Lee, taken from the series LAKES (always there) (2023).
Eyal Hareuveni
Fredrik Rasten (two electric guitars, one acoustic guitar), Ruben Machtelinckx (two electric guitars, one acoustic guitar)
