Acoustic Double-Neck Guitarist Ian Ethan began a journey into truly uncharted territory when he picked up this seldom-seen 18-string instrument in 2005, two years after leaving the Berklee College of Music. While most who venture to play the instrument are either baffled by or unaware of the possibilities that it offers (its history seems to peg it as more of a grandiose stage prop than a valid musical tool), for him it is simply "the most effective and intuitive means I've found to translate into sound the things I'm hearing in my head."
Praised by multiple Emmy-winning producer/composer Peter Bruce Wilder, featured on radio and tv stations from New England to California, and now gaining recognition from major instrument companies such as Ovation guitars and Kyser Capos, the 29-year-old will be releasing a new album in early 2012 and continues to perform in listening rooms and small theaters around the country such as the Center for the Arts (Grass Valley, CA), Studio 99 (Nashua, NH), Blue (Portland, ME), Arsenal Center for the Arts (Boston, MA), Salem Theatre (Salem, MA), State Theater (Auburn, CA), Harlow's (Sacramento, CA), Sunapee Coffeehouse (Sunapee, NH), and River Arts (Morrisville, VT), to name a few.
Drawing on a diverse musical background that saw him learning piano, drums, saxophone, electric guitar and bass beginning at the age of five, Ian Ethan's strikingly-unconventional, self-invented approach to the double-neck guitar is both magical to hear and mesmerizing to watch. And while his performances are visually intriguing to say the least, it is not showmanship but rather the sincere desire to accurately communicate the harmonically rich, multi-layered music of his composing (or "discovery", as he prefers to refer to the process) that has impelled him every step of the way.
At times intensely percussive and complex rhythmically, Ian's music is just as often spacious, delicate, and melodic, pulling listeners along with him Into Open Land (the title of his 2008 debut.) Today his performances take this already multi-faceted, three-dimensional sound and multiply it exponentially with his very careful, intentional, and musical employment of an electronic looping device which allows him to record, layer, and re-orchestrate the phrases that he plays live. Multiple simultaneous melodies, rhythms, and harmonies weave in and out of eachother, often re-emerging slightly transformed in a subsequent piece until all of the ideas seem to merge into one grand realization of connectivity.
Often starting out with solo pieces and gradually threading a course toward breathtaking musical summits built on countless layers of live-overdubbed harmonies, his concerts are infinitely more than mere demonstrations of technical innovation and personal skill. Instead, each performance is a genuine embrace of every audience member and an irresistible invitation to come along on a journey into a world unseen. And ultimately, it is the experience of that epic journey, more than his personal ability, which leaves audiences speechless, exhilirated and inspired all at the same time.
As one first-time listener in California commented: "Ian's music is phenomenal - watching him play is not 'listening to music'...it's a full mind experience. Transporting."