American, New York-based polymath Elliott Sharp always expands his musical world. His OCTAL series of albums collects pieces performed on the custom-made Koll 8-string fanned-fret guitarbass built exclusively for Sharp by Oregon-based luthier Saul Koll in 2005. These compositions function somewhere between etudes and jumping-off points for improvised explorations, filled with free jazz energy and burning bluesy extemporizations. The Koll 8-string has the full range of bass and guitar. The David Gage Realist piezo pickup mounted in the bridge allows Sharp to introduce acoustic transients and the physical manifestation of the vibrating strings on a resonant body.
OCTAL’s fifth book of improvisations uses terms from physics, language, or philosophy as sonic impetus to frame the improvisations, and each is based on a specific technique or
