A three-dimensional sound: Guy

A three-dimensional sound: Guy Buttery at the Green Note

Award-winning South African acoustic guitarist Guy Buttery played to a full house at the Green Note, Camden’s hot jazz club where only the best perform

A three-dimensional sound: Guy

He was on his way to Portugal, and had just come from the Green Man Festival in Wales.

A tall, thin man with fingers about a mile long and an easy style of commentary, Buttery is something else when on stage. His African Blackwood handmade guitar was crafted for him in Cape Town by Cassini.

Phases of extraordinary tones and melodies come in waves of the fullest music as he seamlessly switches pace and tempo, coaxing the most impossible sounds out of his instrument, shaking it at the end as if to dredge the last echoes from it.

Guy Buttery (Medium)

Buttery’s distinctive acoustic style is clearly influenced by traditional South African instrumentation. Live, he uses an EBow and a looper to create “synth-like textures”. He says he is influenced by such artists as Tony Cox,Brian Eno, and Ralph Towner, but his KwaZulu-Natal background shines through in many of his pieces.

His sound is to folk what CGI is to 35 mm film:  three dimensional, striking and inexplicable. He is, without doubt, in a unique class of his own.

More info on his site: www.guybuttery.co.za