Álvaro Domene
guitar · electronics · composition · audio mastering
"Feels so far ahead of the rest of modern music, like a peek through a tear in the space-time continuum, a demented dimension where Autechre, John Zorn, and Fredrik Thordendal are united by breakcore." – Ian Chainey, Stereogum
Bio
“Domene continues his virtuosic exploration of the guitar as a tool to conjure soundscapes, induce pure thought via music, and invoke sonic mayhem.” – Ed Keller, Creative Director Venice BiennaleÁlvaro Domene is a Madrid-born, New York based guitarist, composer, electronic musician, recording artist, audio engineer, and educator operating at the convergence of various styles of contemporary creative music. His sound and compositions are influenced by the avant-garde jazz and western contemporary classical traditions, as well as metal, noise, electronic music, fractal maths, astronomy, and autonomy based politics.He has toured and taught internationally, and recently worked with Joe McPhee, Karl Berger, Elliott Sharp, Vinny Golia, Henry Kaiser, Álvaro Pérez, Tani Tabbal, Briggan Krauss, Jon Irabagon, Michaël Attias, Jim Black, Ben Goldberg, Michael Bisio, Sam Newsome, Colin Marston, Mike Pride, Ches Smith, Scott Amendola, Fred Lonberg-Holm, Mat Maneri, Brandon López, Tim Dahl, Weasel Walter, Patrick Shiroishi, and Billy Martin, among many others.He has released over 50 albums as a leader and/or co-leader with labels such as Iluso, zOaR, Klanggalerie, Our Silent Canvas, and others, and is an active performer in New York’s fertile jazz and experimental music scene, leading various groups in addition to working with numerous artists, including the multimedia theater show Spacetime (with astrophysicist Luke Keller and poet David González, under direction by the late Lenard Petit), which recently headlined shows at The Egg in Albany and the historic Bardavon Opera House Theatre in Poughkeepsie, New York, the McCallum Theatre in California, and collaborated with the Carl Sagan Center for Research at the SETI Institute. Domene has also participated in conferences such as Cosmic Brains at Medialab-Matadero in Madrid, discussing the potential to leverage synthetic cognition in the pursuit of collective emancipation.His work has been positively reviewed by Jazzwise, The Wire, Stereogum, New York City Jazz Record, All About Jazz, RTVE Spain, Brooklyn Rail, Guitar Moderne, El Intruso, Pop Matters, Angry Metal Guy, Tomajazz, The Free Jazz Blog and many other specialized media outlets like Avant Music News, on which “Synaptic Self” by the trio dMu, was included in the list of “Best Albums of 2016”. Álvaro’s first solo record, “The Compass”, was a “Recommended New Release” on The New York City Jazz Record, and Avant Music News featured it on their “Best Albums of 2018” list. He won the Conlon Nancarrow Award for Excellence in Music for his 2022 album Not Arbitrary, which was described as “the alien response to Voyager 1’s Golden Record”.In addition, Álvaro provides top quality audio mastering services, and co-runs Iluso Records, an independent record label dedicated to support and disseminate creative new music.
“Álvaro Domene sounds like a frightful demolition team.”
– Paul Acquaro, The Free Jazz Blog“Domene’s sound sculptures pose questions of emotion, spirit, intellect, the cosmos- and in the end, these questions of sound invite us to act in some way. The sword hangs upon all our walls and in ringing metal it leads to one destination in unison. A ‘land of song’, puissance, voices raised in glorious clamor. In unison against a falling power.”
– Ed Keller, Creative Director Venice Biennale“Disarmingly Alien.”
– Stereogum
ÁD: "I often hear melodies and other musical events simultaneously happening at different tempi, range, direction, stereo location, and correlation to each other at both the micro and the macro level, resembling the self-replicating nature of fractal maths at different magnitude of perspectives. What this entails, for instance, is that the same melody might take the form of a full 5 minute piece but also occur in one single instance and anything in between, as well as being manipulated in different ways [pitch transposition of many kinds, tempo, retrograde, granular, rhythmic displacement and mutation, etc] while retaining the structural codependency of all the iterations of said line and its inner cells. Melodies can become a web of decentralized musical cells that have an interdependent logic and structure."
– Excerpt from the interview with Ian Chainey for Stereogum.
Discography
SOLO WORKS2026
DARVO Machinæ I
DARVO Machinæ II
DARVO Machinæ III2024
Collisions
Contradictions2023
Rapid Influx2022
Heptad (Volume II)
Not Arbitrary
Torsion
Heptad (Volume III)2021
Heptad (Volume I)
The Sword Still Hangs Upon the Wall
Dismissed As Chimerical
Where The Stars Are Whirled
Backward Causation2020
Illustris2018
The Compass
COLLABORATIVE WORKS2026
ALL DAY SUN AURA — with Scott Amendola
QUANTUM DISSENT — with Álvaro Pérez2025
ESCAPE VELOCITY — with Álvaro Pérez
ADAPAR 3: Öpik Transmission — with Álvaro Pérez2024
STANDARDS — with Álvaro Pérez
Zodos (Volume IV) — with Álvaro Pérez
EXU3DC — with User Friendly
RE-ENTRY — with Álvaro Pérez
Warning Bells — with Tom Law2023
Carcass — Quartet with Kevin Cheli, Seth Davis, Tom Law
Circumstellar — with Álvaro Pérez
ADAPAR 2 — with Álvaro Pérez
Tituba — Quartet with Pérez, Colin Fisher, Mike Pride
Zodos (Volume III) — with Álvaro Pérez
Mostro: COÁGULOS2022
ADAPAR — with Álvaro Pérez2021
Radical Accretion — with Álvaro Pérez
Zodos (Volume I) — with Álvaro Pérez
Zodos (Volume II) — with Álvaro Pérez
Hocket Pulsar — with Killick Hinds
Música Poética — Quartet with Karl Berger, Ingrid Sertso, Michael Bisio, Harvey Sorgen
Elliott Sharp presents: I Never Metaguitar 52020
Beneath The Earth There Are Machines — with Dane Johnson
Nueva Guitarra — with Harvey Valdés
Live at Singularity Music Series II — with Elliott Sharp
Phonon's Alloy — with Elliott Sharp, Colin Marston, Weasel Walter2019
Catatonic Effigy's Putrid Tendency — with Colin Marston & Mike Caratti
Expressed by the Circumference — with Elliott Sharp & Mike Caratti
Live at Singularity Music Series I — with Sam Newsome & Mike Caratti
El Tren Fantasma / The Ghost Train — with Henry Kaiser
Sly Horizon: Anatomy of Light — with Jeremy Carlstedt & Rick Parker2016
dMu's Synaptic Self — with Josh Sinton & Mike Caratti
Live at The Firehouse Space — with Briggan Krauss2013
Öpik-3 — with Álvaro Pérez & Daniel García Bruno2012
Gran Masa — with Mike Caratti, Álvaro Pérez & Sergio Mena
QUOTES & PRESS
Stereogum Interview
Brooklyn Rail Interview
RTVE La Tercera Vía feature
Guitar Moderne Interview
El Intruso interview (Spanish)
“Álvaro Domene’s work is music’s future rendered in the present.”
— Ian Chainey, Stereogum“One of the most inspiring electric guitarists active today.”
— Matte Henderson“Domene continues his virtuosic exploration of the guitar as a tool to conjure soundscapes, induce pure thought via music, and invoke sonic mayhem.”
— Ed Keller, Creative Director Venice Biennale“The phrase ‘face melting’ was coined for music like this.”
— Jonn Palmér Jeppsson, Hinsides Magazine“Domene sounds like a frightful demolition team.”
— Paul Acquaro, Free Jazz Blog“Domene has his own voice that is both in your face and laden with subtleties.”
— Mike Borella, Avant Music News“The remarkable guitarist and composer from Madrid, Álvaro Domene – based in New York since 2015- has become, on his own merits, one of the most promising representatives of the new creative music.”
— Sergio Piccirilli, El Intruso“Álvaro Domene’s Lenticlouds. Total facemelt music. Just what I needed today.”
— Nate Chinen, The New York Times“No stack of superlatives can properly prepare a listener for Domene’s surprises. As we’ve come to know over a career that has produced a stunning body of work that continues to push the possibilities of music ever forward, saying or reading anything about the art is different from listening. That is to say, aurally encountering the latest Domene composition turns the conceptual into the concrete, grounding the experimental in something real. It’s the music equivalent of seeing the first modern painting that opens your eyes, the first taste of a dish that expands your palate, the fact that turns your snapshot of reality into a panorama. As culture continues to stall out, trying to amplify the now-imperceptible echo of a big bang from decades ago, Domene’s music has an increasingly rare freshness. You press play; your brain lights up. It repudiates the lazily retro and enforced staleness. A new Álvaro Domene album is truly that: new. That’s what you can expect going in. The rest? Well, fittingly, that’s another thing entirely.”
— Ian Chainey, Stereogum“Kingston-based artist Álvaro Domene is one of the most inventive and hyper-productive guitarist-composers in the world. For starters, he has released 19 either solo or collaborative efforts since 2020. I’m not kidding. Look it up. It’s staggering. I find the dialogue he initiates between virtuosic guitar playing and various programmed drum machines and algorithms to be his most fascinating vehicle for expression.”
— Max Kutner, The Upbeat Dead Beat Blog“Heptad offers the surprises of improvisation seamlessly combined with the satisfying arc of well-constructed compositions. Álvaro’s style is very much his own yet we may hear hints of John Abercrombie, Anthony Braxton, and Thelonious Monk not to mention the intensity and virtuosity of Cecil Taylor or the mathematical bluesiness of Conlon Nancarrow’s pieces for player piano.”
— Elliott Sharp on Heptad Volume III (2022)“Domene’s dispatches from the unknown end of music will resonate with people who have made music their life, who want surprises and seek comfort in the unexplored. After all, that’s a key part of Domene’s story. And for those who vibrate on the same wavelength, they may feel like through Domene’s work, they’ve finally found a home, too.”
— Ian Chainey, Stereogum“If you’re looking for a bad ass hot hand guitarist who puts art before showmanship stop here and have a gander. I love how well he can play and the perfection of his tone especially, but more than that I love the finished product that’s completely unspoiled by ego.”
— BirdBoyBlizzard Music“Álvaro Domene es uno de los referentes del jazz de vanguardia en la escena de Nueva York”
— JM Sebastián, RTVE Spain“Álvaro Domene is an utterly uncompromising, fearless presence on his seven-string instrument contextualized within creative processing and experimental techniques. His work yields outcomes ranging from the tranquil and calm to raging, volcanic intensity.”
— Anil Prasad, Innerviews.org“Domene’s use of pedals and digital processing is not just at the cutting edge of guitar-slinging. Still, it’s also at the cutting edge of real-time creation of improvised and complex musical structures that could only exist through his advanced and innovative use of exotic delay pedals.”
— Henry Kaiser, Avant-Guitar Trailblazer“Standards, the new album by Domene and frequent collaborator Álvaro Pérez is out now via Iluso Records, and, in typical Domene fashion, it’s an absolute brain-buster. If you’re into the truly avant-garde side of jazz and guitar music, it’s well worth your time. The take on Mancini’s ‘Days of Wine and Roses’ is one of those sublime moments when experimental music also hits you straight in the heart.”
— Wolf Rambatz, Music Journalist“ADAPAR, the duo of multi-instrumentalist Álvaro Domene and saxophonist Álvaro Pérez, feels so far ahead of the rest of modern music, like a peek through a tear in the space-time continuum, a demented dimension where Autechre, John Zorn, and Fredrik Thordendal are united by breakcore. Weasel Walter, no stranger to using the fringe of music as a bungee rope, called it a ‘disorienting duet of fractured fax-machine glitch-babble,’ and, really, who am I to argue with Weasel Walter? Longtime readers know I’m a Domene disciple, so you cannot quarrel with me when I call 3: Öpik Transmission that good, good stuff. Like past works, it’s a lot, often all at the same time; thus, begone, normal people. You bet, this thing will shed your tin-eared, fairweather friends faster than a shaggy husky brushing past your black pants. Some folks aren’t ready for the future. That said, there’s something so now about what ADAPAR has achieved. Check out ‘The Value Of Vision.’ Squiggly information eternally pours out of a spigot that can’t be turned off, and then, beneath the noise, big, foreboding guitar chugs rumble like thunder on the horizon. When was the last time you felt something like that? Probably today, probably while reading the news.”
— Ian Chainey, Music Writer“Collisions and Contradictions are fine examples of the ineffable sensations that Domene’s music evokes. The related sets are named quite literally, letting metal, jazz, and electronic elements, among other touchstones, smash together like particle beams in an accelerator. What’s produced can be quite contradictory and even disarmingly alien. Take ‘Fierce Universalism,’ Collisions’ opener. With its body-blow beats, skittering solos, and metallic chugs, it’s like a computer trying to recover a Blotted Science song lost on a severely fragmented drive. However, unlike some self-consciously experimental releases that come off as a skunkworks produced solely for other musicians, Collisions and Contradictions have something else swimming around in the soup of the neat noises. In a sense, it’s the trademark touch of all of Domene’s releases: These songs are teeming with life, imbued with the human experience. They’re less a didactic exercise in theoretical possibilities and more like someone showing you the inner workings of their mind.”
— Stereogum“‘Biomimicry’ is Álvaro Domene swinging for the fences. It’s all quicksilver, sped up melodies over noisy pads, loops and thumps, over under upside down signals, otherworldly whammy bar and harmonizer torture. A noise jazz industrial racket of the highest order, from the bastard son of Buckethead and Albert Ayler.”
— NYS Music“I’m a guitarist myself and, when I heard Álvaro play, I knew that there was an originality, a creativity, and a kind of bold exploratory sense about him. Guitar can be a very cliche instrument and most guitarists pretty much sound alike. Álvaro is not that. His approach to sound design, composition, and flow, is truly unique. He is an unbelievably creative and unique artist who takes his work so seriously. When I heard him play I knew this is the glue, the space, and the energy that we need to make this show really pop. I can only say the best thing to do is to hear some of his music. It’s adventurous, and not easy to take but if you are willing to open your mind to what he brings to the table, prepare to have your mind blown because it’s complex, nuanced, rich and so surprising, and done with such care and craft. It’s truly outstanding. We had to have him in the project!”
— David González, Storyteller/Poet/Musician (WAMC Northeast Public Radio)“‘Heptad Volume 1’ captures Álvaro in real-time performance mode. As he describes it, the pieces are composed and notated and then spontaneously interpreted for this album. All processing happens in the moment, with custom-programmed pitch delay algorithms that influence the final output. Its seven pieces reflect a diversity of approaches. Pulsing, percussive, ambient, ethereal, disquieting and lacerating are just a handful of words that reflect what you’ll hear.”
— Anil Prasad, Innerviews.org“Not Arbitrary scratches a lot of my itches. I’ve listened to it tens of times because it’s like a key that unlocks a part of my soul that I don’t get to commune with often. It’s so weird to write this about an album that others will hear as noise, but the sheer fact that it exists makes me feel less alone. Somewhere in this world that seems to prioritize separation and destruction of community, resulting in an irrepressible loneliness wracking our brains and bodies that are starved for connection, there’s someone out there making music that I can relate to. The older I get, with the wrinkles of my alienating idiosyncrasies growing ever deeper, that feels more and more miraculous.”
— Ian Chainey, Stereogum“Everyone knows the old joke: HOW MANY GUITARISTS DOES IT TAKE TO SCREW IN A LIGHT BULB? It takes one hundred guitarists…. One guitarist to actually screw it in and ninety-nine guitarists to stand around and say how they could do it better. Metaphorically speaking, Álvaro is the rare dude who has figured out new ways to screw in a light bulb. And all of those ways are ways that nobody else has figured out yet. So, nobody can stand around and say that they could do it better. It’s really new stuff – the first time you will hear anyone doing what he is doing. That’s my favorite kind of guitar surprise. I urge you to check his The Compass CD out!”
— Henry Kaiser“Ambient clean tones morph into Wagnerian waves of distortion, as he employs the entire range of his 7-string guitar. Álvaro Domene has mastered the art of turning non-pitched abrasive sounds into a kind of beauty.”
— Michael Ross, Guitar Moderne“Expressed By The Circumference is a strong date by three gifted improvisers who are at the top of their game.”
— Bruce Lee Gallanter, Downtown Music Gallery, New York“The Iluso discography expanded with the release of Warning Bells, a collaboration between Álvaro Domene and Tom Law. Is it heady? Of course it is. The lead stream, ‘Stigmergic,’ merges spider-esque guitar skittering with ‘photons spinning around your head’-style electronics à la Iannis Xenakis’s electroacoustic works. When the more legato leads kick in, you’re either all aboard this train or not. Naturally, I’m all aboard. It’s one of my favorite albums of the year so far.”
— Wolf Rambatz, Music Journalist“‘Illustris’ is an ever-surprising thunderous distortion fest. It’s more on the noise rock improv side of his output, but it’s not without several extended, flickering, atmospheric passages. The entire album morphs seamlessly from mood to mood and makes for a thrilling listen for the open-minded.”
— Anil Prasad, Innerviews.org“Catatonic Effigy’s debut album is a powerful and effective attempt at inhabiting the zones between extreme metal, free jazz, and modern composition. The combination of the density of metal and the rhythmic looseness of jazz is breathtaking. One of the most exciting additions to the post-metal canon in years.”
— Phil Freeman, The Wire“Catatonic Effigy includes three of the best minds that avant-garde music has to offer.”
— Pop Matters“A sonic Frankenstein’s monster with a body of ear-splitting riffs, tectonic bass & drum detonations, and drifting electronics—simultaneously majestic and terrifying.”
— Antonio Poscic, Angry Metal Guy“Trio Grande: Scott Amendola, Henry Kaiser and Álvaro Domene, proverbially set Tom’s House on fire last night in Berkeley, CA with a mercurial, improvised set.”
— Anil Prasad, Innerviews.org“Jesus!! Incredible phrasing and linear directional shifts, beautiful!!”
— Matte Henderson“El notable guitarrista y compositor madrileño Álvaro Domene -con residencia en la ciudad de Nueva York desde 2015- se ha constituido por mérito propio en uno de los representantes más promisorios de la nueva música creativa.”
— Sergio Piccirilli, El Intruso“I thoroughly enjoyed The Compass. Álvaro did an excellent job summoning the darkness… I appreciate the variety of textures and harmonies, and the great recorded sound. I’ll definitely be listening to this more in the coming days.”
— Ben Monder“Immense show. Álvaro’s deep slabs of hardened steel, gut and gristle were sometimes Wagnerian, sometimes hardcore mathcore, with Michaël Attias’ alto standing in for human yearning and vulnerability in the face of overwhelming power, like Lear against the storm, with the ever-inventive Mike Pride building backbones for every surprising sonic beast as it appeared. Wonderful!”
— Steve Ventura, Quinn’s“Things start out easily enough with ‘Temor V’ on guitarist Álvaro Domene’s solo recording. Dreamy notes wash over a shoreline that could go on indefinitely. But there is an ominous tone hovering above the music. Domene controls the weather through heavy chords and sustain. Thunder rumbles and…well, is resolved with the most refrain. You know he is just playing with you. These ten tracks, half improvised/half composed, draw inspiration from ambient soundscapes and heavy metal explorations. The guitarist is a connoisseur of both noise and extended technique, kind of like Robert Fripp-meets-Merzbow. That said, we understand Domene’s process to be detailed and attentive. He slags heavy drones, mixing them à la Sunn O))) with dark metal ambience that skirts the fringes of rock, noise, free improvisation, and nightmare. If it weren’t for the extraordinary control, terror might ensue. ‘Fermi Paradox’ takes its initial cues from the stylings of Derek Bailey’s fingerings before inflating into the worlds of Sonny Sharrock and the Melvins. But wait, there’s more. Domene can hypnotize you with his seventh string, a bass-line that sets up the mesmeric piece ‘Pendulum,’ which swings between deftly plucked notes.”
— Mark Corroto, All About Jazz“Domene has given us a solo album that offers a different take on the modern electric guitar. An impressive outing wherein technique is clearly on display yet always in service to the compositions. Álvaro informs us (if you hear) of his very unique influences and has assimilated them into an organic language all his own. I hope there is more to come.”
— Thano Lomiento“Both Briggan Krauss and Álvaro Domene are well-seasoned and sound like they are coming from a common place of mature and thoughtfully crafted improv. Extraordinary!”
— Bruce Lee Gallanter, Downtown Music Gallery, NYC“The atmosphere the duo develops is enveloping, the slow ooze at the start is created by Krauss’ intensely rhythmic phrases and Domene’s deliberate chordal movement. The fog burns off quickly though as the two engage in an intensely percussive passage that raises the tempo and quickens the pulse. Throughout the performance, they move seamlessly from sound-sculpting to earth-scorching.”
— Paul Acquaro, The Free Jazz Blog