Chris Rainier is a multi-instrumentalist, performer, composer/improviser and visual artist from Melbourne, Australia, now based in London.
For over a decade he has focused on extending the sonic possibilities of the lap steel guitar - most recently the acoustic, hollow-neck Weissenborn - beyond its historic use and context. Drawing on traditional techniques and repertoires, he has explored new musical territories within an improvisational framework, embracing a disparate range of musical influences: 20th/21st century 'classical' music, tape looping, Just Intonation, drone, exotica, Futurist noise, Balinese gamelan gong kebyar, Hindustani slide guitar traditions, pre-war Hawaiian steel guitar and the sounds of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop.
Chris has performed solo and in collaboration with other performers in a diverse range of concert venues, festivals, art galleries and non-traditional performance spaces, often improvising live soundtracks to film. Solo tours in Europe, Japan, the USA and Australia have seen him share the stage with Masaki Batoh [Ghost/The Silence], Taku Sugimoto, Tetuzi Akiyama, Giovanni di Domenico [Jim O'Rourke], Owen Gaertner [Horse Lords], Diane Cluck and Yuri Landman.
Rainier's research into microtonal music and new instrument designs, influenced by the work of composer Harry Partch, was the focus of his postgraduate studies at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music. Beginning in 2013, he has presented performances of Partch's rarely heard works for voice and microtonal guitar, as well as readings and musical extracts from his Depression-era journal Bitter Music. He has also presented lectures on Partch's life, music and guitars at various universities and institutions around the world, including the Universität Mozarteum Salzburg, the Harry Partch Archives at the University of Illinois, the Slade School of Fine Art in London and the Sydney Conservatorium of Music.
Currently he is also performing with Dutch new music ensemble Scordatura, performing the early chamber music of Partch, as well as assisting in creating replicas of some of the composer's unique musical instruments. Since 2018 he is pursuing doctoral studies at the University of Huddersfield, exploring ideas of authenticity in the work of Harry Partch and its relationship to performance practice.
His most recent recording (2018) is ZOZOBRA - a solo album of avant-folk songs on various microtonal guitars and organ, as well as further experiments on the Weissenborn. 2019 will see the vinyl release of recordings of Partch's early compositions for voice and microtonal acoustic guitars, some dating back to the 1940's.
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Currently he is also performing with Dutch new music ensemble Scordatura, performing the early chamber music of Partch, as well as assisting in creating replicas of some of the composer's unique musical instruments. Since 2018 he is pursuing doctoral studies at the University of Huddersfield, exploring ideas of authenticity in the work of Harry Partch and its relationship to performance practice.
His most recent recording (2018) is ZOZOBRA - a solo album of avant-folk songs on various microtonal guitars and organ, as well as further experiments on the Weissenborn. 2019 will see the vinyl release of recordings of Partch's early compositions for voice and microtonal acoustic guitars, some dating back to the 1940's.
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Download and/or stream albums and/or tracks at bandcamp >
