LOOPS AND SUCH - by Alex De Vore

Josh Glenn's mad experimentation

"For the first year of experimenting, it was really just me in my room playing around with ideas," Josh Glenn tells SFR. "I'd take all these ideas, put my favorites onto one piece of paper, what I call my 'one sheet,' and I would jam out for an hour or two; sometimes one progression, one idea, and gradually I came to realize I needed to consolidate these ideas."

That consolidation is today known as the John Glenn Experiment, a one-man band of singer-songwriter-style lyrics meets experimental folky looping project from San Antonio, Texas. Looping, for those not in the know, is the process of playing and recording snippets and pieces of music and slowly adding more and sections to create layered, repeated sounds that might otherwise never exist. Glenn's brand of looping makes use of a single acoustic guitar—riffs, chords, beats and solos, all blending into one fascinating melange of melodic sounds at the intersection of folk, electronica and indie rock.

"The initial reason was to be a better solo guitarist," Glenn explains. "I could just rip two chords then solo on top of [them], but I ended up developing. …I don't know what to call it, but it's my way of playing folky electronic sounds without using electronics."

Indeed, some of Glenn's best work, such as his 2016 album Orange Moon, has sounds that might easily be mistaken for synths or effects, but everything was recorded live with one guitar.

Glenn did perform with the short-lived band Nat'l Parks for a time, but solo success has been more within grasp. He tours often, usually alone, and camps out during his sojourns to leave more room for music making—a far cry from his pop-punk roots and early love of electric guitar.

And though he's tightened his style over more than a year of development, he says he still likes to bring as many improvisational elements into live sets as possible, so you never quite know what version of a Josh Glenn Experiment song you're going to get, but you know it'll be phenomenal. Next comes more touring, a better website (jgexperiment.com) and as many songs as he can put together between the stacks and layers and sounds Glenn crafts.

By Alex De Vore