Moonlander

A quick intro site. Later more, I’ve not very much time right now.

The Moonlander was made for Lee Ranaldo of Sonic Youth. My second instrument I made for bands. Right after I had finished the Moodswinger for Liars I mailed the management of Sonic Youth who responded within one hour (that’s management!) and one day later Lee mailed me he was excited about my work and had certain desires with additional droning strings.

The instrument received wide attention since it was made for Lee. I got a pitchfork article because of this one. You won’t see the instrument very soon in real life. Only two copies exist. I very rarely take it along at presentations, because it’s rather fragile. Lee mentioned the same and is only experimenting with it in his studio. I don’t think it’s used on The Eternal. At least I couldn’t trace it, but we mail a few times a year and he’s always positive and recently he got his own signature Fender Jazzmaster, with exact the same colors. I congratulated him with it and he also had noticed the similarity. So the idea of blue transparant is not based on my Moonlander in case you might think, but accidentally Fender has the same taste for what looks cool. I’m very proud of this similarity.

The Moonlander has a very weird sound. Almost like if you are playing in a cathedral. It’s a very natural and broad sounding reverb. To my own surpise after finishing it. I had thought it would sound more like one or two resonating strings. The double head is a bit out of balance, something I changed on the Burner Harp Guitar, which is a 2.0 version of this one and working better. However the Moonlander also has it’s own unique timbre, not heard on any other instrument yet.

Instead of what many people think, the Moonlander is not a Harp Guitar, but a sympathetic string guitar, which means, the strings are not meant to be plucked, but hum along in resonance with the played tones. The Burner Guitar however is a harp guitar. That’s the main difference between these two instruments of mine.

External links

2007 Pitchfork interview

Go to List of my instruments

Go to the table of contents

Go to Moonlander (in Dutch)

Go to Moonlander (in French)

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