Article Contributed by Gratefulweb
Published on 2026-04-01
Geiger von Muller: Neocubist Blues
A recipe for fusing cubism and country blues has surfaced, and it works just fine. London’s experimental slide guitarist Geiger von Muller is premiering his new album, Neocubist Blues, a release that strips guitar music down to the core while pushing it into stranger, sharper territory. It is not merely a new record, but a new conceptual lane as well, fusing the grit of country blues with what von Muller describes as “cubist” experimentation.
The result is thrashy yet intricate, with 11 of the album’s 16 tracks clocking in at around one minute. Everything is wrapped into a pure guitar-music format, reducing the sound to a single instrument placed, in his words, “under the microscope.” Or, as von Muller puts it more directly: “The plan was to administer a magnifying glass to the six strings. Or, rather a microscope.”
The release has been circulating among a tight-knit circle of colleagues and independent radio stations since November. The official premiere follows a deliberate delay driven by von Muller’s unease about social media and AI, citing the old adage popularized by Nirvana that “just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they aren’t after you.” Even so, his enthusiasm for the album remains at what he calls a 300% excitement level.
Why 300%? “Whenever I release an album I’m normally working on the next two in the background already,” he says. “So that’s why my excitement total is multiplied threefold. So it’s kind of a constant multidirectional excitement scenario.”
Musically, Neocubist Blues draws from roots-folk country blues but collides with rock, prog, experimental, and even classical influences. Some passages are loud and abrasive, others intricate and closely detailed. The through line is the instrument itself: one guitar, examined from every angle, with no excess left to hide behind.
Von Muller is also leaning hard into brevity. The abundance of one-minute and sub-one-minute tracks gives the record a clipped, radical energy, as though each piece arrives, says what it needs to say, and vanishes before comfort sets in. The album cover even comes with a recommendation sticker suggesting it be played at maximum volume on a hi-fi stereo, so the full effect lands “as if a real ax was banging in the room.”
Listen / Buy:
Bandcamp: Neocubist Blues
