Album Notes

All but toothless
A virtual jaw harp orchestra challenges the dominance of guitars. Here's to musical diversity!

Starting from the city jungle of Vienna, the LOOPING jaw harp orchestra has set out to discover unexplored musical regions. Elephant Road, off the beaten track, directly leads to the habitats of rare musical instruments. Jaw harps and percussion are a good substrate on which steel pans, saxophones, marimba, trumpets and many other instruments may flourish. Is it rock, or jazz? Is it world music, or folk punk? Who cares? Powerful and vigorous, the LOOPING jaw harp orchestra still does not neglect the tender young leaves and bizarre creatures in the jungle of music.

The basic idea behind this project is to consistently replace typical guitar parts by jaw harps. More than three dozen of them are played on this CD – either distorted for electric guitar sound, or 'clean'. LOOPING started in 2007 as a one-man project by Ing. LOOP [pronounced: engineer loop], with the album Gitarren, nein danke! [Guitars? Thanks, but no thanks!]. For Elephant Road, Ing. LOOP asked old and new friends to join him for a sweeping sound experience.


Günther Paal plays tenor and baritone saxophones with audible joy.

Ernst Reitermaier a member of the Vienna Vegetable Orchestra, adds baritone and alto saxophones and (bass) clarinet.

Peter H. Thomann contributes jazzy soprano and alto saxophone sounds.

Boris Wokurka with his trumpet, has given the album Elephant Road its name.

Ing. LOOP is in charge of all other instruments: jaw harps, steel pans (steel drums), percussion, marimba, keyboards, accordion, kalimba, etc.