Tosin Abasi has teased the release of a nylon-string guitar from his Abasi Concept brand, taking to Instagram to demo a prototype he promises is coming soon.
It is not the first time the Animals As Leaders guitarist has demoed a nylon-string prototype of his groundbreaking Larada model. In 2022 he showcased a 7-string with a fanned fret build, volume and tone pots on the body’s top.
In that time, however, the design has evolved. Abasi says we won't have to wait too long before it is released. “We’re still finalising the design,” he explained. “This one is a prototype. We’re getting close to the finish line tho!”
If so, Abasi can count on a few pre-orders. Misha Mansoor of Periphery being one of them. “Lemme get dat,” commented Mansoor. Sure, replies Abasi, in exchange for that Surfcaster offset that Jackson has made Mansoor, and is looking very much like it could be his next Jackson signature guitar.
Abasi is not above getting excited himself. Wait until the end of the video, he says. And there you have it, the risks of playing an extended-range guitar in a domestic setting are laid bare; Abasi knocks his coffee over, the precious final sip all over the rug.
This really is a tease. There are no spec details, and silhouetted against the sun, we can’t make out too many details – it’s even hard to tell if the guitar has seven strings or eight. But it has a thinline body, 24 frets, and it sounds sweet.
One of the most interesting things about progressive guitar’s adoption of the nylon-string is how it brings guitar tone and technique full circle, with our 21st-century trailblazers recontextualising an art-form that was established in 19th century by O.G. classical guitar players like Francisco Tárrega, and the flamenco styles that were pioneered by Antonio de Torres then ultimately popularised in the post-war era by Paco de Lucia.
And to that, today's players are applying the know-how and influences that have cropped up along the way. Animals As Leaders is something very different early classical music but listening to Abasi playing a snippet from Another Year on this Abasi Concept prototype, it’s like a pop-cultural wormhole has been opened, and we’re all invited to step through it.
Polyphia can take some of the credit for opening up that wormhole, too. Watching Tim Henson and Scott LePage deploy their Ibanez cutaway nylon-strings in the Playing God video, 45 million views on YouTube and counting, has had a seismic impact on contemporary guitar. Ibanez subsequently released its TOD10N Tim Henson signature guitar.
It remains to be seen whether the Henson model does for the nylon-string what Steve Vai’s JEM did for high-performance electric guitar but for a new generation of players, that sort of naturally compressed attack of a nylon-string, its feel and precision, presents a new dynamic to complement their low-end adventures in extended-range metal guitar.
Not that it’s easy to mix the two. LePage told MusicRadar in 2022 that he was not sure how they would ultimately perform a track like Chimera, which has both eight-string guitar and nylon-string. Not only that, LePage downtuned the eight-string’s lowest string a half-step during the take.
“We were recording and I said, ‘I want this note! Why the fuck not? Let’s just do it real quick. It’s probably still possible,’” he said. “But then Tim wrote all of his nylon-string stuff to it, so there are parts where there is nylon guitar, and then there is parts where there is distorted eight-string electric guitar. If we ever do play that one, I am very curious to see how we end up making it work
What happens next is going to be fascinating, and we’ll bring you news as and when Abasi Concepts releases this. You can browse the current range at Abasi Concepts. In October, Abasi and Ernie Ball Music Man unveiled a limited edition version of his Kaizen signature model in a Galium finish and it was possibly the coolest guitar we have seen in this or any other year.
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