Loren MazzaCane Connors & His Guitar, Are Shaving The Dawn...

Loren MazzaCane Connors was born in New Haven, Connecticut in 1949. Best known as a composer and improviser, Connors has released over 30 albums on record labels across the globe. Music has always been a part of Connors' life. As a child he studied violin (which he credits with shaping his vibrato technique on the guitar) and trombone and guitar during his teens. Though in 1966 he began playing bass guitar in a rock band. Early on Connors was heavily influenced by his mother's singing as well. She often performed Johann Sebastian Bach pieces at funerals. This exposure to classical music led Connors to investigate the music of Giacomo Puccini and Frederic Chopin. Blues, particularly the works of Robert Pete Williams and Muddy Waters, also appealed to him. Instead of concentrating on music Connors decided to study art at Southern Connecticut University and the University of Cincinnati in the early 1970s. Though he quickly decided his music was more original than his painting. He moved back to Connecticut in 1976 and lived in a warehouse artist community. In 1978 Connors began releasing his first LPs -- an eight volume series of improvised acoustic works on his own Daggett imprint. Around 1981 he shifted from this style of free improvisation to a more structured style, performing mostly traditional and original folk music with singer Kath Bloom, which he recorded on his Daggett and St. Joan labels. Then from 1984-1987 Connors abandoned music and it wasn't until the end of this hiatus did he turn to electric guitar.

By this time Connors had ceased Daggett and was releasing his (and Robert Crotty's) work on St. Joan and recording regularly with vocalist Suzanne Langille. He also recorded under numerous names: Loren MazzaCane, Loren Mattei and Guitar Roberts before settling on Loren MazzaCane Connors in 1993. The 1989 LP "In Pittsburgh," managed to gain a growing interest in Connors. After moving to New York City in 1991 Connors released his most heralded album at that point, "Hell's Kitchen Park," on yet another label of his own, Black Label. Since 1991 Connors' profile has risen dramaticly. Portland, Oregon's Road Cone label became one of the first to issue Connor's albums for him. Since that time Connors has performed across the United States (including Alaska), Ireland, England and Sweden. He has performed with Keiji Haino, Alan Licht, Jim O'Rourke, Chan Marshall, Darin Gray, Rafael Toral, John Fahey, Thurston Moore, Henry Kaiser, Dean Roberts and numerous others. Suzanne Langille has continued to appear on many of his recordings as vocalist and songwriter, and has also edited and arranged many of his solo recordings. Currently, Connors often performs with his band, Haunted House, which includes Langille, guitarist Andrew Burnes and percussionist Neel Murgai.

Connors' recorded output has gained momentem during the '90s, making him possibly the most prolific guitarist in music. There are over 50 records of Connors' on his own imprints and on over two dozen other labels: Road Cone, Table of the Elements, Union Pole, P-Vine, Halana, Ecstatic Peace!, Father Yod, Drag City, Dexter's Cigar, The Lotus Sound, OO Disc, Hat Noir, Secretly Canadian, Family Vineyard, Megalon, Menlo Park, Persona non grata, Forced Exposure, Gyttya, Drunken Fish and more. In 1999 Glass Eye Books issued "Autumn's Sun" Connor's first trade publication. Text & Bio From His Home Page


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Album Of The Week By Boomkat: Loren Connors is a name which still may not be familiar to many of you despite a career that spans over 30 years in the sphere of the most tantalising and independent stripped down guitar music ever produced. Emerging from a rich musical background, Connors (his Grandmother’s surname, replacing MazzaCane) originally started recording and pressing-up his own records in the late 70s – but it was only in the late 80s that he achieved anything resembling popularity. It was a re-discovery by Sonic Youth’s Thurston Moore, Forced Exposure’s Jimmy Johnson and Jim O’Rourke (among others) which catapulted Connors’ music into the well polished sights of the avant garde, and before too long re-issues were surfacing of Connors’ classic work and the delights of his blues influenced guitar improvisations could be enjoyed by those unable to track down his limited run vinyl pressings.

With a recording career that spans over an incredible 9,000 hours of guitar music, this epic box set compiles some of the most interesting moments drawn from long-deleted 7”s, oddities culled from cd compilations and, most importantly, previously unreleased works. Compiled with an evident show of love, the three cds here flow incredibly well and are just a pleasure to listen to from end to end, ranging from his characteristic slow, melancholic and pensive blues to more distorted and lo-fi tracks that almost sound like a cross between John Fahey and Vincent Gallo in places, taking in the debris of his surroundings. Connors has a spontaneity which is apparently due to his Parkinsons disease – he says he never knows which day will be his last playing the guitar – but the recordings seem driven by so much more than biological necessity, it’s as if playing guitar is his way of orating his views to the listeners, with words and emotions carried across the sparse notes. This really is quite an incredible collection, fans and newcomers alike should dip in without delay. Essential Purchase. Text By Boomkat - Go To Listen

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