The Aristocrats selections

Listen to The Aristrocrats' selections here

GUTHRIE GOVAN:

Debashish Bhattacharya - "Aanandam"

'Debashish is a serious slide guitarist - you can really hear a deep understanding of Indian classical music in every note he plays. I sometimes find it hard to grasp the concept that he and I technically play the same instrument - why won't my guitar sound like that?!'

Conlon Nancarrow - "Study for Player Piano No. 3a"

'I picked this one mostly because I thought it might entertain Marco, who of course wrote the tune 'Blues Fuckers': it just occurred to me that Nancarrow probably felt much the same way about blues clichés! (It's also fascinating to hear just how far this composer pushed the potential of the player piano: he found a way to create some truly unplayable music, long before the advent of MIDI?)'

Frank Zappa - "Sinister Footwear II"

'Simply because I wanted to make sure that the mighty FZ would be represented at least once on our playlist ;-)'

BRYAN BELLER:

Viktor Krauss - "Hop"

'Just because Viktor's a bassist doesn't mean he can't create a beautiful guitar-texture-driven groove and unique sonic universe. This is one of my favorite songs in the world.'

Nine Inch Nails - "Beside You In Time"

'The climactic track of the "With Teeth" album, with a very simple and timeless melody floating over a surprisingly bouncy groove from Trent Reznor. The pre-outro pause - which blurs the line between pulse and no-time over 16 bars - and eventual release is one of the coolest things Trent Reznor has ever done, in my book.'

Janet Feder - "Heater"

'Janet Feder is an artist/composer and prepared baritone guitarist whose work I've been following for 10 years. Her background is a mix of classical, avant-garde, progressive, and, somehow, folk. The version of this song on Spotify features guitar only (from the compilation "I Never Meta Guitar"); for those wishing to dig deeper, it's the full-blown arrangement from her album "Songs With Words" that killed me in the first place.'

MARCO MINNEMANN:

Led Zeppelin - "Achilles Last Stand"

'Doesn't need any introduction I think :-). And it's one of my favorite Zeppelin tracks.'

Field Music - "Share The Words"

'Band I got acoustically introduced to, while browsing through a record store in Oslo. This is how XTC could probably have sounded like, had they continued.'

Judas Priest - "Solar Angels"

'Dreamt of that song last night, for whatever reason :-), so I listened again.'