Hans Reichel


Hans Reichel was a German improvisational guitarist, experimental luthier, inventor, and type designer.

Career

Reichel was born in Hagen, Germany. He began to teach himself violin at age seven, playing in the school orchestra until age fifteen. Around the same time, he began to play guitar and became interested in The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, and later, Frank Zappa, Cream, and Jimi Hendrix.
He left music in the late 1960s to pursue font design and typesetting. He returned to music in the early 1970s, when he recorded a tape of guitar music. This recording was sent to the jury of the German Jazz Festival in Frankfurt, where he was asked to appear in a special concert for newcomers. Discussions with Jost Gebers, the founder of Free Music Production, led to the release on his debut album, Wichlinghauser Blues.
During the 1980s and 1990s, Reichel recorded solo albums and duets with Rüdiger Carl, Tom Cora, Eroc, Fred Frith, and Kazuhisa Uchihashi. He was featured in 'Crossing Bridges', a 1983 music programme based around jazz guitar improvisation, and broadcast by Channel 4 He was a member of the September Band with Paul Lovens, Rüdiger Carl, and Shelley Hirsch. He also worked with groups led by Thomas Borgmann and Butch Morris. The record labels Intakt, Rastascan, and Table of the Elements released some of Reichel's albums, compensating for the limited distribution of FMP.
In 1997, he was named one of the "30 Most Radical Guitarists" by Guitar Player magazine. He died at the age of 62 in Wuppertal, Germany.

Invented instruments

Reichel constructed and built several variations of guitars and basses, most of them featuring multiple fretboards and unique positioning of pickups and 3rd bridges. The resulting sounds exceeded the range of conventional tuning and added unusual effects, from odd overtones to metallic noises, to his play.
His most famous instrument is the daxophone, which consists of a single wooden blade fixed in a block containing a contact microphone, and it is played mostly with a bow and a block of fretted or unfretted wood known as the dax. While the bow vibrates the end of the wood, the dax is pressed down along the middle section of the wood, modulating the vibration and thus the noise. The wooden blade does not need to be a specific shape, and the instrument is notable for its throaty, almost human sounds.

Partial discography

  • Wichlinghauser Blues
  • Old Tune/Heimkehr der Holzböcke
  • Bonobo
  • Guitar Solos 2
  • For Example
  • Erdmännchen
  • Buben
  • Sven-Åke Johansson mit dem NMUI im SO 36 '79
  • Sven-Åke Johansson mit dem NMUI im SO 36 '79
  • The Death of the Rare Bird Ymir
  • Bonobo Beach
  • Bergisch-Brandenburgisches Quartett
  • Duet Improvisation
  • Kino: studio opera with Eroc
  • The Dawn of Dachsman
  • Coco Bolo Nights
  • Angel Carver
  • Live at the Knitting Factory, Volume One
  • Dix improvisations
  • X-Communication
  • Show-down
  • Stop complaining/Sundown
  • Mini-suite:
  • Shanghaied on Tor Road: The World's 1st Operetta Performed on Nothing but the Daxophone
  • Hans Reichel
  • Variations on Jay
  • AngelicA 93
  • Kumunguitar
  • Conduction 28/Conduction 31
  • Conduction 31/Conduction 35/Conduction 36
  • Lower Lurum
  • Le bal
  • Buben...plus
  • The Vandoeuvre Concert
  • Looking at Flees with Henry Geldzahler
  • Thomas Borgmann's Orkestra Kith 'n Kin
  • Book/Virtual COWWS
  • Hans Reichel/Rüdiger Carl
  • The Return of Onkel Boskop
  • King Pawns
  • Festival Beyond Innocence: 2 1997–1998
  • Cue sheets II
  • Total Music Meeting 2001: Audiology — 11 groups live in Berlin
  • Yuxo: A New Daxophone Operetta
  • ''Self Made''

    Typefaces

Hans Reichel designed a few typefaces, among them one of today's most popular type designs in advertising and in marketing.
  • 1983 Barmeno BQ
  • 1995-2000 FF Dax
  • 1996 FF Schmalhans
  • 1999 FF Sari
  • 2001 FF Routes
  • 2004 FF Dax Compact
  • 2005 FF Daxline
  • 2001 FF Anuel