In his solo music Raphael Vanoli uses a fender stratocaster and its microscopic sonic possibilities to create multilayered music in real-time. By heavily boosting volume the guitar turns into an extremely sensitive object, therefore the instrument constantly needs to be restrained from bursting into feedback. This allows simultaneous usage of playing techniques like blowing and singing, often involving beard, hands, thighs, breast and all kinds of soft objects like feathers, paper and sponges, combined with more traditional ways of playing. Sometimes he uses custom build electronics to pan-control the sound to multiple amps and speakers in spacialized installations, playing with the frequency range of different speaker sizes.
His compositions are highly emotional and disruptive - much closer to an electronic music universe than the preconceived landing zone of a conventional electric guitar. Although at times loud and extreme - Vanoli’s music is especially meditative and body friendly. It hits the soul with waves of empathy.
In 2014 Vanoli obtained a research and composition grant to develop these playing techniques and compose. He recorded a first solo album in january 2015, which is currently being mixed and will be released in 2015.
Amsterdam based
guitar player, composer and improviser, RAPHAEL VANOLI (GER/FRA) has developed a musical voice of his own. Constantly
experimenting with the possibilities of the electric guitar, he has invented a playing technique that uses breath on the instrument. Cherishing real-time sound production, his practice involves many different custom-made hardware electronic setups that require complex independent movements of both his hands and feet, sometimes including breath and voice.
Next to his SOLO guitar work, his main band projects are the critically acclaimed experimental post-rock duo KNALPOT, and the recently formed space-dub band STOLPERNOVA.
He is also part of Lackritz, Opositor, Regenorchester XV, Tetzepi and Spinifex Orchestra and has played in many more modern creative jazz, contemporary and electronic music projects on the dutch and european scene the past ten years /.../ He is also a soloist and performer of contemporary & classical repertoire and has performed works by Louis Andriessen, Klaas de Vries, Steve Reich, Frederic Rzewski, Eivind Buene, Peter Adriaansz, Makoto Nomura amongst others.
He is highly interested in making music for films, wether live or in the studio and has collaborated with filmmakers such as Martha Colburn, Jochem de Vries, Sebastian Dias Morales. He studied jazz and classical guitar at the Conservatory of Amsterdam from 1999-2007, studying mainly with Maarten van der Grinten, Lydia Kennedy and Jack Pisters. He teaches guitar and gives workshops about hardware live-electronics.
«Guitarist Raphael Vanoli has an aesthetic that rather refers to current electronic music than to conserved jazz guitar. Vanoli doesn’t pursue a crystal clear image of notes, rather the opposite: he looks for jagged sounds, which scrape and pull on all sides. With one square meter of effect pedals under foot range he lets multifaceted soundscapes arise»
«Raphael Vanoli treated his fender pretty much as a warped six-string bass and combined it with synths and other gadgets to produce truly outlandish, dark and exciting lo-fi sounds»
