David Torn is a texturalist/guitarist (winner of Guitar Player Magazine's Readers' Poll Award, Experimental category: 1994 & 1997), composer, multi-instrumentalist (live looping, oud, saz, kikuyae, kotar, MacOS, samplers, programming, mandolin, optigan, etc.), producer, writer, occasional singer & sporadically vociferous consultant to technological niches within the musical instrument manufacturing community, among other things.....
Torn has often been featured as the primary texturalist and/or soloist on films scored by composers Carter Burwell, Mark Isham, Ryuichi Sakamoto, Lisa Gerrard, Patrick O'Hearn, Michael Shrieve, Graeme Revell, Michael Whalen, Edward Shearmur, etc., in addition to having begun scoring for films, himself. Soundtrack work includes:
The Score (howard shore)
The Deep End (peter nashell)
A Knight's Tale (carter burwell, dir. brian helgeland)
Heist
Traffic (cliff martinez & splattercell, dir. stephen soderburgh)
The Blair Witch Project: Book of Shadows
Three Kings: textures, guitar, oud, saz
The General's Daughter: textures, guitars
The Corruptor: textures, guitar, oud
Snake Eyes: textures, solo guitar
The Velvet Goldmine: instrumentalist, in duet with/for Mr. Carter
Burwell
The Hi Lo Country: textures, soloist (gtr/ oud)
Conspiracy Theory: texturalist
Theme: Murder**: composer, instrumentalist
other recordings as an instrumentalist (and/or producer) include:
K.D. Lang: DRAG (1998)
Meshell Ndegeocello**: BiTTER (1999)
Ryuichi Sakamoto: Discord: Untitled 01 (1998)
Ôlive, w/ D.J. Spooky, orchestra, Yutaka Sado: cond.
CHOCOLATE GENIUS: BLACK MUSIC (1998)
Richard Stoltzman: Spirits (1997)
McKinley**: Big Top Shop Talk (1998), producer
Jim Carroll**: Pools of Mercury (1999)
Laurie Anderson: (work in progress, 1999)
Jewel: (untitled: TBR)
Jeremy Toback: Perfect Flux Thing (1997)
Richard Julian: (1997)
Joni Mitchell Tribute: (TBR:w/ Chaka Khan,Jerry Marotta,Herbie
Hancock,Wayne Shorter,L. Klein)
Marc Cohn: (fr. 'Festival of Light')
Jane Siberry: (fr. 'Festival of Light')
Dopefiend: (1997, TBR)
Robert Rich: Flux (1998)
Stiletto**: Michael Shrieve
The Tooth Mother: Mick Karn
Bestial Cluster**: Mick Karn
Tamna Voda: Dark
Beginning to Melt**: Jansen, Barbieri, Karn
Bon: To the Bone
Secrets of the Beehive: David Sylvian
Jason's Chord: Andy Rinehart (producer)
Mark Isham**: Mark Isham (Grammy recipient**, 1991)
Code: Robby Aceto (producer)
Castalia**: Mark Isham (Grammy nominee**, 1989)
3 Pound Universe: Wes Martin (producer)
Trust: Patrick O'Hearn (Grammy nominee, 1995)
The White Rim of Heaven**: B. Gingrich
Cheryl Bentyne: Something Cool
Tolerance for Ambiguity**: C. Lin (producer)
Stone to Flesh: Steve Jansen & Richard Barbieri
Mark Nauseef: Sura
Marco Polo: Alesini & Andreoni, Sylvian, R. Eno, H. Budd
Bebo Baldan: Earth Beat**
The Snake Music**: M. Nauseef, M. Tadic, Jack Bruce, M. Stockhausen
The Leaving Time**: Michael Shrieve/Steve Roach
Gongzilla: Thrive
Meant to Break: Abba Rage
lonely universe**: (producer)
many bobbing heads at last**: Marty Fogel (producer)
Diving into the World**: Bebo Baldan
Building the Colossus: Happy Rhodes
Letters from Joub_e: Artie Traum
i become the eagle: Shelley Koffler
Take me Home: Amy Fradon & Leslie Ritter
Precious Waters: Michael Whalen
forever sharp & vivid**:w/D. CasT+C.Massey
Night Scenes: Michael Whalen
frame by frame: Michael Whalen
Jansen/Karn/Barbieri: ISM (1999)
Patti Scialfa: ('work in progress', 1998)
Many Worlds are Born Tonight: Happy Rhodes (1999)
tantra: tantra (1999)
{** asterisked works include material written or co-written by Torn **}
some 'choice' (hmmm...) (English-language) positive press-quotes, for your probable amusement & perusal:
"While creating ungodly, insect-fear
noises by subverting loops & delays to his own weird ends
with massive amounts of distortion, he'll tell you he's just playin'
the blues: it's a strange mix of primitive mojo & state-of-the-art
technology."
- MUSiCiAN MAGAZiNE (USA)
"Avant-Guitar's crawling king snake....."
- GUiTAR PLAYER MAGAZiNE (USA)
"One of the most exciting guitarists
around..... unearthly textures, incendiary solos, exotic sonic
tapestries."
- BiLLBOARD MAGAZiNE (USA)
"Twisted brilliance."
- JAZZ TiMES (USA)
"Torn is a true wizard, someone
who finds mystical potential in every sound."
- L.A. TiMES (USA)
"Torn creates lush ambient textures
that make Pink Floyd's Ôspace music' sound like third-grade
sandbox doodles, & transforms jazz harmonies into impressionist
soundscapes; if you appreciate guitar as a vehicle for both out-of-body
spiritual quests & raw emotional expression, let Torn be your
shamanistic guide."
- SAN FRANCiSCO BAY GUARDiAN (USA)
"Ambience with a serrated edge."
- CD REViEW (USA)
"Torn, with his loops & sheer
psychedelic abandon, is able to create dense textures, screaming
intervallic leaps and dark-hued washes of sound that are as ingenious
as they are impossible to imitate."
- DOWNBEAT MAGAZiNE (USA)
"He can take a single note &
make it careen from a scream to a sigh that will leave you devastated.
We're dropped in at high speed storming down the highway &
then dropped off unceremoniously at the next crossroads, but the
ride is a harrowing thrill."
- CD REViEW (USA)
"Back me against a wall & I'll
be forced to admit (if you stick a gun down my throat) that Torn's
patented polyglot of Hindustani-style articulation, Eastern modality,
bebop phrasing, psychedelic fuzzfire, trip hop sampling, country
string-bending & ambient ear-aurora is the least self-conscious,
most interesting & FUN high-brow hybrid currently mutating
across America's parched musical landscape. If beaten into submission
& tortured with thumbscrews, I may even concede that his revelatory
yet hilarious guitar pedagogy makes more sense & does more
good than 100 bogus books crammed with little black dots &
formulas that read like Cardassian hieroglyphs. But admit that
Torn ROCKS? You'll have to KiLL me, first."
- GUiTAR PLAYER MAGAZiNE (US)