Guy Buttery talks to Tonight

Guitar maestro Guy Buttery talks to Munya Vomo about his music and his new album
When you get hold of Guy Buttery’s latest self-titled album, don’t miss the text in the sleeve which explains that the album was made in some of the most unusual places you could find.

Credit: madphotodesign/Facebook

Guy Buttery. Photo: madphotodesign/Facebook

When you get hold of Guy Buttery’s latest self-titled album, don’t miss the text in the sleeve which explains that the album was made in some of the most unusual places you could find. In pursuit of that specific sound that he could only hear in his mind, the guitar maestro built makeshift studios away from big cities. Any material that was made outside these temporary structures came from contributions of other artists.

“I found a lot of studios to be quite sterile. You try to be in a soundproof place where you protect yourself from outside sounds and I understand those dynamics. But on this album I decided to record in a lot of spaces, from Grammy Award-winning studios to makeshift studios. It was recorded in the US, France, Italy, the UK, Durban, Johannesburg and Cape Town,” said Buttery.

“Each artist featured here was recorded in their own time. Vusi Mahlasela was recorded in his home town and the guy from Italy was recorded in his bedroom. I largely left the other musicians’ contributions to themselves.”

For 15 years, Buttery has been making instrumental music with a variety of guitars from all over the world but to date he has no name for his genre.

“It’s hard for me to define. I don’t care about being defined as an acoustic musician or world musician. I feel that the beauty of music is in the ears of a certain beholder. I think classifying it affects the way that people consume the music. I don’t want to taint anyone’s own experience,” he said.

With or without the genre specifications, the current album is already doing well, locally and internationally.

“The record is playing on US radio and they seem to place it towards world music. Yet for me, world music is supposed to be traditional and there is nothing traditional about what I do.

“There are classical elements, Indian and Maskandi ones, in my music but I would be insulting all of them if I say that I do them,” explained the multi-instrumentalist.

With standard songs that have lyrics, there is almost a feasible formula when it comes to songwriting. It is a very different case when it comes to instrumentals and Buttery shared his process.

“There is almost zero formula in terms of how I make music. It all comes out of me ad libbing on the guitar. Sometimes the ad libs happen over two years and in some cases over two hours. For example, Floop, a song off this new album, was written in under 10 minutes. I came up with these chords that agreed with each other and it worked. What’s cool for me is that there are no sort of laws for me to make music,” said the musician.

But where do people play this music?

“Some people use it for weddings. I get a varied number of reactions from my listeners. The cool thing, especially about instrumental music, is that it is open to listeners. A few years ago, I saw Vusi Mahlasela at Oppikoppi and there was an elderly Afrikaans guy next to me in the crowd who sang along to every Sepedi lyric that was being sung as tears dropped down his cheeks. It made me think how every piece of music can form a million different kind of emotions. It’s up to the listener to choose (how) they interpret it,” he said.

You also can’t help but wonder, with the layers of different sounds on each song, if Buttery has toyed with scoring for the screen.

“I have done a bit of music scoring for TV and film and that seems to be on the rise now. Last year alone I did music for four different productions. I have also worked in theatre. Sometimes music has a cinematic quality and so I take it as much as I can,” he said.

In terms of the other musicians featured on his album, Buttery describes the process as effortless.

“A lot of the collaborations happened organically although there were some pieces that I did with Vusi in mind. I didn’t know if it was going to be possible but I was really happy that he agreed to do it,” he said.

The tour for the album is under way.

“I started in Johannesburg and we are now doing Durban and Cape Town. I will be using a different group of artists at every gig,” he said.

Check out the tour dates at www.guybuttery.co.za/gigs

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