Stern / Guerra
Stitch
electronics, field recordings, electric guitar
recorded and edited in london, december 2001 - june 2002
cover art - Mr. Snow
impermanent recordings

available for purchase through Half Theory, Erstwhile, Synaesthesia, A-Musik, Verge, Sound323 and many more outlets
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Along with musicians like Paul Hood, Philip Jeck and Keith Rowe's MIMEO orchestra, Anthony Guerra and Joel Stern would be equally at home on stage at a leftfield electronica night or at one of the free improv clubs sequestered in pub function rooms up and down the country. If there are barriers between experimental electronica and free improvisation, this lot are breaking them down. Stern and Guerra's aesthetic is minimal, mysterious. Using electronics, guitar and field recordings, they open with glassy, hovering drones, punctuated with muffled blips, faint subterranean rumbles and occasional shards of noise. But unlike many of their contemporaries, Stern and Guerra vary their approach from track to track. Sometimes they come on like a more abstract Fripp and Eno; other times we could be listening to recordings of sunspot activity, a shortwave radio lost inside the plumbing or fragments of a long lost session from Tony Conrad. Guerra's not afraid to actually play the guitar conventionally either, and his dolorous, hesitant chording is heard to beautiful effect on the gorgeous closing track. Gentle hisses and pops emerge as the guitar is looped into an aching cascading figure which seems to be gently erasing itself, as if the oxide was flaking off an old tape. Eventually the loop gets clearer, more celestial. Grainy, long feedback tones emerge; a door opens somewhere. Someone enters a room. It's one of the loveliest things I've heard in a while. It's this variety (and the fact that they're unafraid of creating some very lovely noises on occasion) that make Stern and Guerra a more interesting proposition than many of the other ultra-minimalists mining similar seams. Unreservedly recommended.
Peter Marsh BBCi website

“Stitch is an intricately constructed, deftly sustained and pervasively atmospheric exercise.”
Stewart Lee, The Sunday Times, London

"Guerras luminous drones loop through much of the music, refracted at times into recurrent sub-Frippertronics. Stern wafts clouds of interference into this radiant atmosphere, agitated particles of noise and found sound that
either hang around like dust or cling together in a continuum that inverts the guitars serenity."
Julien Crowley, The Wire September 2003

"I could easily see myself disappearing in the smoky trails of these glacial avant-garde improvisations
for hours, and when the performers involved approach the genre with this sort of inventiveness and excitement, I'll be happy just sitting where I am right now, staring at nothing and everything at the same time."
Mats Gustafsson
The Broken Face

Last year, some discs by a cadre of youthful London-based musicians began reaching my mailbox. They were by and large quite enjoyable, fusing aspects of electronics, improv and a certain hard-to-define melodic sensibility in ways that struck me as unique and worth keeping a close ear on. Guitarist Anthony Guerra's solo disc "Spool" ended up being one of my year's favorites with what I heard as something of an updating of the kind of fabrics spun by Fripp & Eno in the early to mid 70's. I mentioned this to Anthony who claimed (and I have no reason to doubt this) that he'd never heard the music of that duo but would try and check it out soon. Well, as of this wonderful release, he still hasn't heard it, but I think those of us with fond memories of pieces like "An Index of Metals" will warm to the music he and Stern whip up herein. Stern's credited with field recordings and electronics and tends to establish rough, gritty beds of noise that form irregular loops that might remind listeners of Jason Lescaleet's productions. They form a superb foil for Guerra's mellifluous guitar drones, weaving in and out of these gnarly textures, sometimes diving into them to get dirty, more often gliding alongside. If someone took Fripp & Eno's "Evening Star" and dragged it across a patch of wet soil, it might play back something like this. The improvisations (all untitled) don't all fall into this general line. On the fourth track, for instance, Guerra picks out a repeating kora-type line against harsh crackles and low moans creating a fascinatingly moody and mysterious air. Keeping me consistently off-balance, the following piece recalls John Fahey, a melancholy line drifting and eroding over washes of echo while the one after that carries hints of Indian string playing with radio static acting in the role of tambura reminding me of the sort of thing Carl Stone has been trying to pull off in recent years with infrequent success. The cuts have a splendid single-mindedness of purpose, choosing an area to concentrate on and mining it thoroughly and with an exacting ear. The final piece, both the longest and possibly the finest, begins with Guerra playing rounded, beautiful tones that (again!) bring to mind the Fripp of "Moonchild" cast over shuffling taped noises that appear to derive from streets, footsteps, rain and other everyday phenomena. The contrast is as striking as it is lovely, the balance in aural interest and appreciation perfectly achieved. Gradually, both elements merge into looped drones forming a swirling braid, coiling for several minutes before calmly unwinding once again into separate strands, one flowing, one agitated. "Stitch" is a marvelous recording, a beguiling approach to improvised music that deserves a wide hearing.
Brian Olewnik, bagatellen

Recorded over a seven-month period, this debut album by the London-based duo of Joel Stern and Anthony Guerra takes a cue from Christian Fennesz's brand of dreamy electric guitar meshed in with noisy electronics. But a clone this is not: Stern and Guerra explore their own territory. In particular, they rely heavily on field recordings that seep in, treated, looped or left intact. They provide an almost constant background and tie together the nine untitled pieces into a hour-long suite. Stitch is more than a suitable title, it describes how roughly the tracks are sequenced, but the changes are not so abrupt and they keep you trapped inside the artists' sound world. Even in its most abstract, electronics-driven moments, the music keeps a door open on melody and harmony. The closing 19-minute track provides the disc's highlight. Here the guitar becomes highly tonal, first slowly laying down a post-rockish motif and later reappearing in a sped-up incarnation as the gritty electronic textures pull it underwater. It is done with art and soul, in a much warmer way than many of the Fennesz knock-offs that followed the release of Endless Summer.
Francois Couture, All Music Guide

"The best piece of the untitled lot is the final, ninth, piece, which takes up almost a quarter of the entire CD.
Starting with picking strings, it slowly evolves in to laptop processed guitar playing, almost like a sweet lullaby."
Frans deWard
Vital Weekly

"Stitch, the latest release by Australian/(sometimes) UK artists Joel Stern and Anthony Guerra is a dense,
pretty, dare it be said, almost tuneful release for Impermanent Recordings (see Peter Blamey's Salted Felt
and Stasis Duo's Hammer & Tongs). Stitch is rewarding texturally but even more intriguing structurally because
it is not about cohesion, more about fragments and the transitions between them. It seems to be made of shards, torn sections with ragged edges, some tacked loosely together, some sutured so tightly the sonic fabric puckers, the tensions tangible."
Gail Priest, Realtime