Guitarist Tashi Dorji grew up in Bhutan, South Asia, and in 2000 moved to Asheville, North Carolina, to attend college. Shortly afterwards he fell in with a community of anarchist punks, and while the music he plays has changed since then, his use of it to express anti-hierarchical and anti-capitalist sentiment has not. Dorji had not been improvising for very long before he made his first cassette in 2009. Following the release of a self-titled debut LP via Ben Chasny’s Hermit Hut imprint, he began touring the USA and Europe, often playing blazing electric music quite a bit louder than his early acoustic experiments. Dorji's most enduring associations to date have been with the percussionists Thom Nguyen (in the duo Manas) and Tyler Damon, and saxophonists Dave Rempis (who joins Damon and Dorji in the trio Kuzu) and Mette Rasmussen. Stateless, Dorji's first album for Drag City, is a return to acoustic music; but according to reviewer Marc Masters in The Wire 440, it “hits more like a punk rock record than a study in extended technique”.

“Improvisation II” from Solo Improvisations (Ola, 2009)

Tashi Dorji: That specific track was recorded really early on, I think it was recorded in 2009 at my friend Patrick’s (Kukucka) studio. It was actually my first studio recording of improvised guitar, with no intention of releasing. He invited to come play some guitar, he’s a close friend of mine and he asked me to record, and that track was one of my first ever of listening and navigating those tonalities. It’s a long form song and it was an interesting first take. But it was also kind of a magical thing because my palette of other musicians improvising is still very limited in some ways, and playing specifically that improvisation I basically sat down and recorded. It was a long form track with the intention of just playing and seeing what it sounds like.

Bill Meyer: How long had you been playing like that?

I started really delving into improvisational practice when I lived in Maine in 2006–08. There was a small venue that had a lot of improvisers come and play. That was when I discovered Derek Bailey and Gavin Bryars, the Joseph Holbrooke Trio, I remember I heard that and that was when I actually started delving into playing. Maybe three years before that I started playing improvised music, cautiously. I recorded a set of maybe ten tracks at my friend’s in 2009 and “Improvisation II” was one of the tracks that was put out on Hermit Hut. Before that it came out on a cassette on a small label in Asheville called Headway Recordings. That’s the story of that track.

“Iron Cloud” from Tashi Dorji (Headway, 2013)

Why did you pick this one?

I think it’s more like the timbral textural quality of that tune. That was recorded in 2012, I think. I’m not sure. I had friends who were studying music tech at UNCA and they had access to a really nice studio at the university and I had a mind to record some stuff after the first cassette. I was really excited to record more and I was interested in recording [something] more textural, timbral, really the closeness of the guitar has more kind of a physicality, the breathing, instrumental territory of improvised music. I think it had mostly to do with hearing traditional music, maybe gamelan, and more of that percussive element, textures and silence and tensions. That was the kind of territory that I was trying to explore, tensions and physical movements of fingers and the fretboard. They recorded the acoustic guitar with so many mics, it was kind of amazing. They had me sit on this box and put mics around the box and everything was resonating. It came out really well, it captured the overtones and basically it’s just the textural aspect of playing.

“Attain” from Blue Twelve (Blue Tapes/X-Ray, 2014)

This is one of my picks, I think the first one with electric guitar. What's the difference between playing solo acoustic and solo electric?

I had been navigating acoustic guitar for a while and I had in mind to maybe do an electric guitar improvisation. And this came about again with a bunch of studio people, friends, I told them I was interested in recording some electric guitar and they had some time slots and they wanted to experiment. I was more interested in a larger sound, navigating electric amps through space. The whole album was recorded in a big hallway outside one of the studios in the school building and the hall opened up into the stairwell and I was in the middle of the hallway facing towards the stairwells. I basically played through two amps and I don’t think I even used any pedals, I played straight through the walls and the ceilings. Again that was me trying to figure out guitar sounds through spatial aspects of playing and how that would impact the way I played. It was one session and we recorded the whole thing.

“No Oracles” from Manas (Feeding Tube, 2015) by Manas

This is the first track so far to feature another player, Thom Nguyen, someone with whom you're still playing now.

I was becoming more and more interested in percussive elements of playing guitar, from hearing more prepared music. I had been hearing a lot of different things, especially growing up hearing more traditional music and monastic music. I’ve always been interested in playing with a drummer because playing with a drummer adds so much more dynamics and energy level, and Thom was somebody who I had seen play and we became good friends, but I wanted to play with him and we started playing together and started a band.

“Both Will Escape” from Both Will Escape (Family Vineyard, 2016) by Tashi Dorji & Tyler Damon

This is the opening track on your first album with Tyler Damon.

That was my first record with Tyler, We did a short, two or three days session and tour. We played two shows, I think, and we had just gotten to know each other. After the tour we decided we would meet up and play some music together. We pretty much went into the studio and recorded a whole album. Tyler had a different palette, different tools to bring to the playing, with bells and auxiliary kind of, and I love that album because of the way that it was recorded, the drum and the kind of larger sounding aspect of the music is just there. And the drums, the low end, it’s very meditative, it seems like one of the early conjuring of spirits of him and me playing together and establishing a long-term comradeship through playing. And it was definitely powerful to do that together.

"Track Two" from ONDADORJICHEN (lathe cut 7", 2017) by Onda/Dorji/Chen

This one is new to me. It seems very different to the rest.

Yes, this is actually very, very interesting, it is a completely different take on recording. I was about to go on tour and I had gotten to know [Che Chen's] music from 75 Dollar Bill. I think I saw him play in Asheville, so we had developed a friendship. I had a tour lined up and I was going to play New York City with him, and he had an idea that we were going to play at this small venue that was kind of an old diner converted into a venue, Sunview Luncheonette was what it was called. [At the venue] Chad I think his name was, he put out a recording for artists, so it was something along the lines of Chad had an idea that before we got together, because the line-up was going to be me and Che and Aki Onda playing together, he had an idea where all of us, kind of quarantine style, would send in a track of whatever to him and put it together. Che mixed it together, he made it into a song. Two tracks. I sent in field recoridngs of me playing violin and banjo and contact mics, and I think that Che is playing bansuri, the Indian flute, and Aki is playing cassettes, and he basically made this into two track that became the release. It was an awesome experiment, I’d never done anything like that before.

Have you worked with those guys since then?

Yes, after the tour we did the show and we also had another residency, Che put together another residence for me, Aki and him at the, I forget the name of the venue in Brooklyn. But we had a three days residency where we recorded at least three or four hours of music which is still being sifted through by Che. Hopefully someday it will see the light of day. It’s a very different context for me to play with folks like Aki Onda, maybe not Che because Che plays guitar, but also a lot of the time when we played together he was playing saxophone, tape, reel to reel tape, sampling and flutes, so it was really kind of an amazing, different kind of improvisation drone that we did together. After that collaboration it became a larger thing.

“Affinity” from Mette Rasmussen/Tashi Dorji (Feeding Tube, 2018) by Mette Rasmussen/Tashi Dorji

I'd be curious to hear about playing with Mette.

I had heard of Mette via Chris Corsano’s collaboration with her, and also her playing was just captivating, I felt there was really kind of a punk rock attitude about her playing, and she was one of the few women that I had encountered playing improvisational music, but also her musicality is really astounding. When I was touring with Godspeed in Europe in 2015, I found out that she was in Stockholm when I was playing there with Godspeed, she was playing some festival. I contacted her and we played at a small venue called Larry’s Corner in Stockholm, we played a small thirty-minute set, I forget if it was before or after my show with Godspeed, and it was the start of our friendship. It was an interesting coalescing of ideas and energy, and since then it just furthered into a larger collaborative project. I had a festival in Montreal and she was playing there too, and I had a small tour with Tyler through Canada and we made the tour where instead of me and Tyler playing duo, after the US tour ended, in Canada we would play as a trio with Mette. But also before the tour started, at the festival we played as a duo at the Suoni Popolo Festival in Montreal, and the day of the show we went to the studio Hotel2Tango and recorded that album, the one that came out on Feeding Tube. It just furthered our friendship, kinship, also via Godspeed You! Black Emperor, she got to meet them and they knew of her and we developed like a larger, family kindship with the Montreal collective. And through that in the we started opening up for Godspeed You! Black Emperor as a duo, and those are playing loud shows in front of thousands of people, and that definitely added to our playing together as a duo. Since then it has been developing and hopefully we will be able to record some more music.

When all of this has changed again.

Yeah! I was supposed to meet up with her, we were supposed to have a residency in Paris and we were supposed to go there, and play with her and a bunch of other people and things stopped.

“Gash” from Hiljaisuus (Astral Spirits/Aerophonic, 2018) by Kuzu

I'm curious as to what it's like to play with Dave Rempis as part of this trio.

Hiljaisuus, that was on a duo tour, and we were going to play at Elastic and I think it was Tyler’s idea, he said, “I think we should play with Dave Rempis as a trio.” I have always been a big fan of Dave, he’s hands down one of my favorite saxophone players in the world, and I had met Dave many times before, but mostly as an audience. But when he did his extensive solo tour where he collaborated with a lot of people on the road, he came to Asheville and contacted me, and that’s how we developed a deeper friendship. Tyler had played with Dave on that tour too, he knew Dave more than I had, so that led to us asking Dave if he wanted to play with us. And I was nervous, because he’s a powerhouse, his presence is really heavy, it’s a lot, I had to level up, before I even played with him I had that feeling. So when the duo tour was playing, when we played Elastic he was a guest, basically, we had no intention of starting a band. I think it was one of my favorite shows that I have ever played with a saxophone player, as a trio in kind of like a power free jazz trio, even though for me as an outsider in the realm of jazz and free jazz, playing with Dave and Mette, I feel lucky and it’s very, very challenging. I’m instantly thrust into the court and I’m just suddenly thrown in there and I have to push myself to play better and listen better. And that’s what happened, that first show at Elastic was one of those shows where I just closed my eyes and just played as hard as I could. And the development of that album and our band, I was very happy with it. Every time I play with Dave and Tyler together as a trio, it’s like an exercise like I’m in a gym lifting weights or something. It’s just so much power and so much dynamics. Anything you play, Dave can just latch on or amplify it, it’s pretty amazing to play with Dave, he’s one of my favorite human beings and musicians to play with. And Tyler too!

"Now Part I" from Stateless (Drag City, 2020)

When I first heard this, I had almost forgotten that you were an acoustic guitar player when I first saw you in Asheville six or seven years ago, since I'd seen you so often in loud settings. It seemed like you were coming back to it, but I don't know how much you were really away or just recording again.

Ben Chasny had released my first debut LP and he said Drag City was a good label. It took a long time and I think starting a couple years ago I started talking to Dan [Koretzky], like hey, would you be interested? And he was like, yeah, send me things, we’re always ready to listen to what you have. I was thinking, electric or acoustic? But I don’t know, since I started playing guitar in Bhutan, there’s something about an acoustic instrument that breathes life and I feel like it’s a physical, an energy and physicality involved with that instrument that I don’t play any form of traditional idiomatic music so it’s like a place that I feel like I can navigate a lot of sounds in a natural sense, in an acoustic setting. I started finally recording and nothing worked out. I asked my friend Patrick, I said there was a dance studio about the French Broad Food Coop where I worked part time, like let’s just go out there and record some stuff. And he brought mics and stuff, and I had an intention of recording something more like a punk record, but using an acoustic guitar, like punk and metal, all the stuff I’ve been constantly listening to. I think the intention was to play vigorously and unhinged almost, and it came about. We did one take, he started rolling the tape and I started playing. That’s what all of those tracks are, I’m just navigating different sounds and sonic ranges.

It’s definitely got a lot of different things, it’s not linear. It was going to be on a label that for me was a bigger label, but I wanted it to be just a bare, skeletal example of my playing. Just bare bones, honest presentation of this acoustic guitar music that I have been practicing for a while. And also thinking and playing and maybe contextualising the political nature of the context we’re in and adding a kind of a fire to what I’ve been playing. Loosely that was the kind of approach I had. The titles were all post recording...it was definitely anarchic possibilities and moments that I’m trying to actualise in my playing.

"to conspire means to breathe together" from We Bow To No Masters (SIGE, 2020) by We Bow To No Masters

The last track. I hadn't heard this before you sent me the link.

I met Patrick Shiroishi and Dylan Fujioka, they’re both LA musicians, and Patrick is an incredible saxophonist and Dylan is a drummer. We became really good friends. This project came up in the midst of the uprising. Things were so heavy and Patrick, I remember we had talked loosely amongst ourselves about doing a project, out of solidarity and tribute to the uprising. Patrick and Dylan started recording, this was mostly Patrick’s endeavour, and him and Dylan had recorded a duo track with sax and drums, and asked Thom and I if we wanted to send tracks, and Patrick would put it together. And we started doing it and I was the last one to give some tracks. Patrick, Thom and Dylan were recording through quarantine, and Patrick would put it together, and at the end I listened to them and I added my guitar track. It was poorly recorded, I think I used a mini practise amp and I sat the Zoom right next to it. I don’t even have a four track here, I just recorded on the Zoom and sent them the track. I told him, two minutes in my track will align with yours but you have to figure out where it comes in. He put it together and it became this kind of punk free jazz record. I don’t think it has any categories, it’s just an anthem of us coming together to voice our solidarity to and the indigenous, kind of like an anticolonial manifesto of some sort.

Stateless is released by Drag City. We Bow To No Masters is released by SIGE. Read The Wire's review of Stateless in issue 440. Subscribers can read the review online via the digital archive.