HUBBLE
Since the inception of his new solo guitar project Hubble, Ben Greenberg of Zs and Pygmy Shrews has sought to
exploit the guitar for its ulterior qualities, simultaneously displaying a true love for the instrument while redefining how
guitar music is understood. Whether distortion-drenched or clean, Ben describes painstaking result as “cyber-dread”,
an apocalyptic, beat-less quasi-electronic music, conjuring Terry Riley’s pulsing minimalist structures and Gregg Ginn’s
aggressive, avant-garde rock. The first full-length record Hubble Drums is set for release on Northern-Spy Records in
November 2011 in support of which Hubble will tour extensively throughout the US and Europe.
About the Hubble live performance, Ben expounds, “Every Hubble set, on a stage or in a friend’s basement or in my
bedroom, is a concerted effort on my part to change the air in the room, to push it towards a state of greater reso-
nance.” Using mesmerizing guitar mastery to create extended rhythmic patters of note groupings of varied tempo,
dissonance, and harmony, Ben hypnotizes the audience with slowly developing, subtle variation, until the listener is
lulled into a highly vivid dream state. The set varies between a versatile and simple set-up and the more ambitious
Hubble Superposition, a quadraphonic experience that splits the guitar signal into four different singals which are
routed through four seperate amplifiers.
Ben’s first release Hubble Linger (NNA Tapes) brilliantly utilized the cassette format by distilling a live performance into
two side-long pieces of stereo-panning guitar. The tape was well received inciting electronic musician Keith Fullerton
Whitman to claim “…I’m fairly floored by this extended solo-trance-out from Zs guitarist Ben Greenberg, who seems to
have invented a device that halts time (musical, actual, and meta-physical) ; its use is put to great effect across this
60-minute blast of cycling “stereo” chord progressions and assorted haze(s) that approaches the fervour of MBV /
Belong’s filtered-out high-gain wash while retaining the minimalist patina of Charlemagne Palestine piece …
awesome.”
"At once heady and visceral, psychedelic and intensely lucid, Hubble's mesmeric guitar webs are laser-etched incanta-
tions to the sublime. At the luminous crossroads of John Lee Hooker and Philip Glass, this is virtuosic and visionary
sound-sculpture that kicks the concept of what is music just a little further down the road. There is something new
under the sun. Just listen." - Michael Azerrad
“Hubble's euphoric wheedlechurn is where the measured precision of downtown minimalism meets the unhinged
aggression of Brooklyn loft noise--truly hypnotic and truly New York.” - Christopher R. Weingarten
“It was as if Greenberg was summoning a galaxy right then and there in a zen state of shred.” - Lars Gotrich, NPR
“His new instrumental solo project, Hubble, finds Greenberg maniacally noodling through celestial, finger-tapped riffs
with little more than a guitar and a basic loop station. It’s a touch more accessible than his past work, and allows his
well-honed virtuosity to shine through.” – The New Yorker
“Greenberg's brand of ambient, sci-fi psychedelia-- dubbed "cyber-dread"-- creatively stretches the limits of conven-
tional guitar technique, tone, and composition in a way that showcases the instrument's formidable capability to fly
solo” - Matt Sullivan, Altered Zones
“…I’m fairly floored by this extended solo-trance-out from Zs guitarist Ben Greenberg, who seems to have invented a
device that halts time (musical, actual, and meta-physical) ; its use is put to great effect across this 60-minute blast of
cycling “stereo” chord progressions and assorted haze(s) that approaches the fervour of MBV / Belong’s filtered-out
high-gain wash while retaining the minimalist patina of Charlemagne Palestine piece … awesome.” – Keith Fullerton
Whitman
Hubble Hubble Linger NNA024 (2011)
Hubble Hubble Drums NS015 (2011)