Ex-Red Hot Chili Pepper preps experimental acid house album

The guitar virtuoso embraces electronics.

John Frusciante has always been one of the more experimental musicians to serve time with the Red Hot Chili Peppers (save for maybe Cliff Martinez): along with his guitar-focused solo work, he’s collaborated with both Mars Volta’s Omar Rodriguez-Lopez and Venetian Snares and knows his way around a modular jam.

In April, Frusciante will take his electronic experiments to the next level with his self-titled debut as Trickfinger. The album is being released by Absurd Recordings sublabel Acid Test, the sometimes-home to Donato Dozzy, Tin Man, Recondite, Paul Woolford and more. Frusciante writes:

“I started being serious about following my dream to make electronic music, and to be my own engineer, five years ago. For the 10 years prior to that, I had been playing guitar along with a wide range of different types of programmed synthesizer and sample-based music, emulating what I heard as best as I could. I found that the languages machines forced programmers to think in had caused them to discover a new musical vocabulary…

In 2007, I started to learn how to program all the instruments we associate with acid house music and some other hardware. For about seven months I didn’t record anything. Then I started recording, playing 10 or so synced machines through a small mixer into a CD burner. This was all experimental acid house, my skills at making rock music playing no part in it whatsoever. I had lost interest in traditional songwriting and I was excited about finding new methods for creating music. I’d surround myself with machines, program one and then another and enjoy what was a fascinating process from beginning to end…”

Trickfinger is due out on April 6/7. Lead track ‘After Below’ and the tracklist follow. [via RA]