Michael Watts - ProfilesArchive

About Me

Ecuadorian-born Michael Watts is a guitarist based in Greece. He started classical guitar lessons at the age of 5, then switched to electric, finally finding his voice as a composer and performer with the steel-string acoustic guitar.He has studied with some of the finest players in that field including Pierre Bensusan, John Renbourn and Isaac Guillory. He was "Guitarist" magazine’s Acoustic Guitarist of The Year 1999 at the age of 22.He now composes music for Theatre, Animated Film, Performance Poetry and inter-discipline visual art exhibitions around Europe. His solo shows involve multi-genre original compositions, improvisation, looping technology, advanced finger-style/percussive techniques/multiple capo set-ups, a variety of open/altered tunings and a great deal of luck!! There is only one goal. The endless pursuit of beautiful, truthful music. ALL loops are created on the fly using an acoustic guitar and fx. NO MIDI, NO SYNTHS, NO DRUM MACHINES, NO ABLETON LIVE (though it takes a pounding in the studio), NO LAPTOP!!!

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My Interests

Music:

Member Since: 7/20/2006
Band Members: SOLO ACT EPK
Influences: Miles Davis, Pierre Bensusan, Autechre, Isaac Guillory, Les Paul, The Orb, Davy Graham, Omar Sosa, Michael Hedges, The Aloof, Edward Elgar, John Coltrane, Eric Satie, Django Reinhardt, The Orb, Portishead, Teebee, Human Touch, Paddy Casey, Steve Reich, Bjork, Bill Frissell, Djelimady Tounkara, Sly and the Family Stone, Renaud Garcia-Fons, Kelly-Joe Phelps, Bert Jansch, John Renbourn, Charles Mingus, Tom Morello, Pendulum, Maria Bethania, Art Tatum, Andy Summers, Omar-Farouk Tekbilek, Haig Yazdjian,Caetano Veloso, Tom Ze, Jeff Beck, Dave Navarro, Photek, Jose Gonzalez, Robert Fripp, Courtney Pine, Takis Barberis, Madredeus, Yannis Spathas... I could go on all day!
Sounds Like: Michael Hedges meets Autechre at Pierre Bensusan's house, The Aphex twin is mixing the drinks and Antonio Forcioni is the DJ. IE. Majorly (and minorly!)atmospheric acoustic guitar solo pieces, guitar and vocal loops exploring the capabilities of the instrument and the performer simultaneously.
Type of Label: None

My Blog

Widestride Man

I've just uploaded this demo and wanted to share some of the history of the recording with you! This piece has existed in various forms for around 8 years now and was first featured on a "Total Guita...
Posted by Michael Watts on Sun, 06 Jan 2008 06:42:00 PST

Persephone

This is a very rough demo of one of my latest pieces. It was recorded using the fishman rare-earth blend system in my Lowden and nowt else so the balance of certain sections isn't quite as I'm hearing...
Posted by Michael Watts on Fri, 22 Jun 2007 04:09:00 PST