E-Bow Heaven

Track of the Week

Mask of Deceit (excerpt)

Week 8 of the grand mp3 download extravaganza.

Here’s last week’s missing track… It is an EBow solo from my song ‘Mask of Deceit’ which deals with and was inspired by similar circumstances to Peter Hammill’s excellent album, ‘Over’, i.e. the breakdown of a reasonably long-term relationship under less than honest conditions. It was an exercise in venting of anger and feelings of betrayal, but the vocal on it is just so awful that I always skip past to the good bit. Which is what we have here.

It’s about a minute’s worth of an EBow solo, backed by piano and electric guitar. It has a very languid and fluid style, and is probably one of my favourite bits of my own guitar work. For those not familiar with the EBow, it is a gadget which attempts to allow guitarists a bit more expression like a violinist, by creating a magnetic field close to the strings which allows the notes to sound continuously without fading away. Due to the way it works it also seems to generate overtones of its own, creating a quite recognisable sound. It has been used by many guitarists, usually as a special effect for a single track, but John ‘Fury’ Ellis (of the Stranglers and the K Group) uses it regularly, and it was also apparently used by Big Country as part of the ‘guitars-as-bagpipes’ sound.

Click here to download.