Ben Greenberg is a guitar monster. His solo project, Hubble, is going to be playing alongside Greg Fox and C Spencer Yeh, The Dreebs, and Night Manager in a experimental-as-hell evening of noise and nonsense on March 26th.

Upon first listen, you’d think Hubble is totally going to town on a loop pedal. You’d think wrong, though; Greenberg, who plays in a bunch of other groups including Zs, Pygmy Shrews, and The Men, disregards the concept of a chord progression and builds musical tension through reiterating and altering stunningly intricate riffs, all of which he actually plays. The resulting sound is both dynamic and suspended in a sort of rhythmic limbo (biblical, not Trinidadian.) It’s easy to get lost in the texture, which conjures associations of Steve Reich’s phasing patterns until you realize it’s all actually being performed.

Greenberg talks about the concept of genre as reductive, music as a language, and a collaboration with NASA in a recent Impose interview. He also shares some insight on shredding for twenty odd minutes without bloodying one’s fingers. “When I was a kid I played in punk bands… what attracted me to that was totally physically and mentally losing myself in that moment, because it was such a release. I’m chasing that same experience with Hubble, only that I don’t wind up with so many broken noses and stuff. But it’s the same basic idea, I want to create something with my guitar playing and music making that people can lose themselves in, and not in a passive way either. I think that great art should demand your attention all the time when you’re experiencing it.”

Groovy. Read the rest of the interview, it’s good. If you can’t be at the show, that sucks and I’m legitimately sorry. Fortunately, you can also stream it.


posted by Forrest Wu