Vince Cuneo of Venice Beach project Portraits of Pirates, and also Movie Club, told us about his love for his Boss Space Echo RE-20.
Vince Cuneo: My favorite piece of gear 'I can't do without' is my Boss Space Echo RE-20. While visiting Roland headquarters with my band Movie Club, we were talking with Igor Len about the original analog Space Echo. It has a tape loop inside and is large in size, so it's mostly used in studios.
One of my influences, John Dwyer of Osees, tried touring with one, which he mentioned in an interview always needed repair. Igor pulled out the compact RE-20 pedal for me to try, which emulates the original device, and - boom - there was a whole new palette with which to paint.
With my ambient guitar project, Portraits of Pirates, it is mostly live-loops of layered textural guitar. I run two guitar amps and put the Space Echo pedal through one of the amps. This allows for a dry and wet sound to happen simultaneously. I focus on adjusting the knobs on the RE-20 during moments I can put my guitar down, which creates a huge psychedelic swell of reverb, echo, and delay.
At each Portraits of Pirates performance, there is a lot of improvisation, and this pedal is key in allowing new moments to happen. I used this same approach while recording Floating Gold. This project is all about exploration and the Boss Space Echo RE-20 allows me to journey to new sonic places.
Portraits of Pirates' Floating Gold album is out in November.
Photo credit: Bobby Rivero
