For all those who care, you can file this one under: “another one of Diego’s curious little side trips indulging in the realm of instrumental guitar music.” You see, I sometimes get a kick out of exploring a certain sound, style, or instrument, using it as a way to broaden my (and hopefully, your) horizons. I do so because it gives me the freedom to share something like Jan Reimer’s impressive solo work The Point Of No Return.
But first I want to ask you something: what is the first thought that comes to mind when you think of an “acoustic guitar”?
Hold that thought, then observe Jan Reimer’s performance of The Point Of No Return‘s title track below:
If you have ever picked up a guitar, or simply taken the time to really look at one, you have probably noticed the way it resonates, how it vibrates the moment you place a finger or a palm on its body. At the end of the day, much like an acoustic piano or a drum, an acoustic guitar, like other stringed instruments such as the banjo or balafon, is, in many ways, a percussion instrument.
An acoustic guitar produces sound through a vibrating string transferring its energy from the bridge to the top of the guitar, the soundboard. It is within the body of the instrument that the sound is amplified, where air moves outward and projects what we hear. It is not the string per se that makes it an instrument, but the shape, the vessel itself. Give a young child some time with it, and the first thing they will likely do is strike its body to make sound.
Released in 1985, Jan Reimer’s The Point Of No Return makes the case that there is a not-so-hidden quality within the instrument, waiting to be drawn out if one chooses to pursue it. This holistic idea of the acoustic guitar as a fuller instrument is what drove him to create his so-called EGP (Electronic Guitar Percussion), as mentioned on his Bandcamp page:
I believe it was I who invented the EGP. It basically consists of an acoustic guitar resting on a modified tripod on which a sound pick-up system has been installed. I then beat the body of the guitar with my hands, as with a percussion instrument. I have been involved in playing the congas for some time and was able to make use of quite a few things from this experience.
Jan made his name in Germany’s jazz scene as a key member of the Cologne-based jazz-rock fusion group Headband, after moving on from performing with Belgian chanson singer Wim De Craene. It was with Headband that he took on a dual role as both percussionist and guitarist. By the time he landed a solo contract with Dortmund’s Plane label, he had begun channeling techniques learned as a conga player into this other percussive instrument.
The “EGP” made its debut on 1984’s Escape From A Fairy-Tale, using multi-track recording to compose and arrange songs with a single instrument: an Ovation classical guitar. With influences drifting across seemingly disparate worlds, Latin, folk, blues, Mediterranean, African, and beyond, to label it simply as jazz would be to miss the point.
1985’s The Point Of No Return marks a kind of demarcation line, here is a fully realized vision of what is possible with the EGP system. Augmenting his sound with electric bass and guitar, it stands as a tour de force for this idea of the guitar as something altogether different.
Unencumbered by the burden of simply being a “guitarist,” songs like the opener “Lecker, Lecker Wunderbar” and “Fast Unbeschwert” drill deep into tonal characteristics most producers would try to smooth out in production. On the former, you hear bottom-heavy, flanging, drum-like patterns played on the bout of the guitar, giving the song its Balearic groove. On the latter, the sustained resonances of the instrument create a swaying, atmospheric arrangement. The following track, “Meditation Fur Glenn Gould,” tips Jan’s hat to another musician who emphasized the importance of extra-sensory sounds and tonalities not typically associated with their chosen instrument.
At the end of the day, I find myself returning to rekindle my admiration for this often backgrounded instrument by way of Jan’s imaginative approach, especially on tracks like “Prima Ballerina”, “Hot Hands”, and the title piece. One hews close to early Iberian experimentations, when Romani travelers drew from the many lands they passed through, helping to spark the influence of flamenco through all its tonal twists and turns. “The Point Of No Return” meanwhile, much like “Hot Hands”, shifts toward a kind of acoustic modernism, where the guitar, once a small voice in a larger arrangement, steps forward as the canvas itself.
It does not take rocket science or futuristic thinking to arrive at what Jan achieves on The Point Of No Return, only a willingness to shift perspective, to place a new horizon onto an age-old instrument. Sometimes, all it takes is a sideways glance.
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