Hubble

Brooklyn musician Ben Greenberg launched Hubble during 2011, shaping it into a solo guitar venture that built directly upon his earlier involvement with avant-rock outfit Zs and Pygmy Shrews. His approach leaned on technically demanding guitar methods that echoed metal shredding more closely than anything typical of experimental circles, favoring finger-tapping while largely avoiding pedals and looping across extended compositions that distinguished him from the many artists then relying on swelling loop-based builds. The initial release came in the form of a 2011 NNA Tapes cassette titled Hubble Linger, which was succeeded later that same year by the first full-length effort, Hubble Drums, issued on the forward-thinking Northern Spy imprint based in N.Y.C. Extensive touring followed to promote the album, encompassing dates across the U.S. and Europe plus a slot at the 2012 South by Southwest festival. Early in 2012, Greenberg also became a member of gritty rock band the Men at a moment when long-running Pygmy Shrews edged toward dissolution and Zs entered a prolonged pause. Despite balancing these commitments, he sustained attention on Hubble through continued road work and select appearances at colleges and galleries. The performances themselves tended toward self-referential and highly conceptual territory, encompassing works such as “Hubble’s Hubble,” a hypnotic composition paired with interstellar imagery captured by the Hubble telescope; “Hubble’s Escape,” whose metallic repetitions gradually transform into the main theme from John Carpenter’s 1980s sci-fi film Escape from New York; and more elaborate presentations under the “Hubble Superposition” banner, which directs Greenberg’s guitar signals through a deliberately arranged quadraphonic amplifier array.