Long before becoming one of experimental music’s most influential guitarists, David Torn was developing an unconventional relationship with sound. Studying under famed conductor Leonard Bernstein, before refining his approach with jazz guitarists Pat Martino and John Abercrombie, Torn joined Lou Reed’s Everyman Band in the early ‘80s and began pioneering the looping, signal processing and atmospheric textures that would define his sound.
Blending acoustic and electronic instrumentation into immersive soundscapes that blurred genre boundaries, Torn’s landmark 1987 release Cloud About Mercury remains a foundational avant-jazz recording.
