Arts & Culture Reporting

Andreas Kapsalis knows no boundaries on his guitar. Slapping and hitting the wood of the acoustic, he treats it like a percussive instrument. He uses his “10-finger-tapping” technique to hit every note with precision, whether he is playing flamenco music or scoring the theme song to a horror movie.

Poet Albert Goldbarth loves to talk about his spaceship collection with anyone who will listen, yet the 61-year-old refuses to use e-mail. “Some days I must say, I’m kind of noble and heroic about it and other days I know people consider me a great big pain in the ass,” Goldbarth said. “I can only say that for me it seems absolutely right to draw the line and not accept that technology in my life.”

Just two albums into his career and Kristian Matsson (a.k.a., the Tallest Man on Earth) is being praised as an iconic folksinger/songwriter by critics and casual listeners alike. All of this attention could easily go to a musician’s head, but that’s certainly not the case for Matsson.

Gojira is spreading the message of environmentalism one pummeling riff at a time. Guitarist, vocalist, and vegetarian Joe Duplantier grew up in Ondres — a small town in southwestern France — which he said is full of natural beauty and a scenic ocean landscape.