Composer's Details

Name:
Michael Brook
Born:
1951

Biography

Michael Brook (born 1951 in Toronto, Ontario, Canada) is a Canadian guitarist, inventor, producer, and film music composer familiar with many disciplines including rock, electronica, world music, minimalism and film scores.

He is most famous perhaps for his sonic contribution to U2's multimillion-selling 1987 album The Joshua Tree in the form of his invention, the Infinite guitar; he is also known for Peter Murphy's 1995 album Cascade. Brook is a specialist in timbre and texture. He was nominated for a Grammy Award in 1996 for his production work and as a co-artist on Pakistani singer Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan's album Night Song. Another notable collaboration was Sleeps with the Fishes with Clan Of Xymox member Pieter Nooten (4AD, 1987).

He toured as a member of the Sylvian and Fripp tour group, with the final concert at the Royal Albert Hall in December 1994 documented on the album Damage. He also opened the concerts with a solo set, featuring the Infinite Guitar with effects and sequencer backing. In 2006, the solo album RockPaperScissors was released, with an ambient remix version following in 2007. Brook toured intimate venues in Canada and the United States in late January/early February, 2007.

Brook breaks many of the 'rules' of electric guitar. He does not use voiced guitar amplifiers, but instead plugs directly into a preamp to broadcast the sound using a variety of effects and processors, many of which he has pioneered. Among his inventions are the Infinite Guitar, played by The Edge of U2, a guitar outfitted with a feedback transducer to produce non-decaying sustain of any note. This design has been replicated by commercial devices such as Fernandes Sustainer-equipped guitars. (An example of this sound may be heard in the opening of U2's "With or Without You" from The Joshua Tree.)

He has produced albums for Mary Margaret O'Hara, Julia Fordham, Jane Siberry, U. Srinivas, Youssou N'Dour, Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, The Edge, Balloon, The Pogues, Jorane, Hukwe Zawose, and others. Brook has also written for a number of film soundtracks including the music for Albino Alligator, Americanese, Mission: Impossible II and the new eco-documentarys, Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth and Who Killed the Electric Car and Sean Penn's critically acclaimed Into the Wild, for which Brook was nominated for a Golden Globe Award.