Guitar

Musician Michael Lückner records under the alias Guitar, blending acoustic textures with electronic elements across a broad spectrum of inspirations that stretch from the cool-period work of Miles Davis to the turbulent shoegaze intensity of My Bloody Valentine. Born and raised in Germany, Lückner acquired his first guitar at age fourteen following a John Martyn concert. Already in possession of a tape machine, he immediately launched into lo-fi recording experiments. During his early twenties he joined a jazz group on guitar while pursuing college studies in philosophy, psychology, and media. Although he maintained his performing schedule, Lückner redirected his creative path in 1995 after purchasing sampling software, shifting to electronics for songwriting and arrangement construction. Later the same year he formed the duo Computerjockeys alongside Wolfgang Hagedorn, deploying laptops for live, sample-driven performances. Solo studio work under the name Digital Jockey began appearing in 2000, and two years later he introduced the Guitar moniker. Guitar’s debut album Sunkissed showcased recurring vocal contributions from Ayako Akashiba. Lückner expanded his engagement with Japanese music and visual culture on the project’s next international release, Tokyo in 2006, which contained four Akashiba vocal tracks plus several instrumentals built around traditional Japanese instruments. A Japan-specific edition appeared under the title Saltykisses, while an earlier Japan-only album, Honeysky, had been recorded in 2004. In May 2007 Lückner issued the Guitar album Dealing with Signal and Noise, highlighted by an atypical cover of the Jesus and Mary Chain’s “Just Like Honey,” and the compilation Salt & Honey, gathering key tracks from the Japanese releases, was slated for autumn 2007.