Slate + Ash – Ruins (KONTAKT)

RUINS is a sonic excavation that turns the electric guitar into a study in collapse, texture, and spatial memory. Featuring exclusive performances from six luminaries of the experimental guitar scene, it dissolves the guitar into unstable currents of raw signal and shimmering harmony.

Recorded and curated by producer Randall Dunn at Circular Ruin Studios, RUINS deconstructs guitar textures into raw sonic material.

Built from exclusive recordings by six experimental guitarists – Stephen O’Malley, Oren Ambarchi, David Thorn, Bill Horist, Ben Greenberg and Arjan Miranda – the instrument engine deconstructs the source material through tape-infused playback, textural layering and transformative effects processing.

SPACE, PERFORMANCE, SATURATION

The RUINS sessions were a series of controlled experiments designed to explore the relationship between space, performance and saturation.

To provide deep tonal versatility, RUINS offers multiple mic perspectives, including a pristine DI, a tube-fed amp array, an eroded stereo spring reverb, and a cavernous re-amped signal recorded in Berlin’s iconic Funkhaus sound chamber. An onboard convolution engine expands this palette further, complete with a curated library of custom impulse responses that lean toward experimental sound design.

VOICES OF EXPLORATION

Each of RUINS’ six experimental guitarists was chosen for their ability to push the guitar beyond traditional musical roles – treating it less as an instrument and more as an interface for texture, gesture, and sonic ritual.

Each artist was given freehand to submit fragments: loops, textures, resonances, and mechanical glitches. Their work is unified with an emphasis on texture, feedback and raw materials, forming the basis of an instrument designed to create new timbral languages ​​that explore the outer edges of guitar performance.

258 PHRASE ARTICULATIONS

48 Ben Greenberg/Arjan Miranda

57 Bill Horist

47 David Torn

68 Oren Ambarchi

38 Stephen O’Malley

96 MULTISAMPLE ARTICULATIONS

28 Ben Greenberg/Arjan Miranda

25 Bill Horist

10 David Torn

21 Oren Ambarchi

12 Stephen O’Malley

281 SOUND DESIGN PRESETS

23 animations

26 atmospheres

17 collages

7 forms

9 loops

31 movements

59 pads

10 ruins

46 textures

53 tones

4,636 ? RAW .WAV FILES

1,159 sounds

4 mic perspectives