Take Out The Geek

Perhaps for the very first recorded piece of music I’ve ever written about that has no tangible physical object associated with it, it is fitting that I write about a piece called The Invisible Guy. A piece specifically created for the web that might be to program music what the comic book is to the novel, The Invisible Guy is the brainchild of L.A. based totalist composer and California EAR Unit percussionist Art Jarvinen whose two commercially released CDs sit happily on my shelf and happily wind up in my CD player from time to time. The Invisible Guy website seems to imply that all of this will wind up on CD, and it can definitely work that way—this is not an interactive Web-based music requiring the Internet like William Duckworth’s Cathedral project. Personally, I’ll be happy when it does. I’m a bit of a luddite as far as the whole MP3 thing goes and if I had things my way it all would come out on vinyl. That said, Jarvinen’s chain of MP3 URLs are a great place to visit online and for now the only way to hear his skewed music which is somewhere between Captain Beefheart and avant-lounge music.

—FJO