Keith Rowe (born March 16, 1940 in Plymouth, England) is an English free improvisation guitarist and painter. Rowe is a founding member of both the hugely influential AMM in the mid-1960s (though in 2004 he quit that group for the second time) and M.I.M.E.O.

 

He is one of the improvisors who has most contributed to the definition of a new vocabulary for the guitar. Or, better, for the "tabletop" guitar: a guitar plugged into the cacophony of the "perfectly ordinary reality" (usually, a barrage of radios and electronic devices). He has played the instrument virtually in every possible manner and with every possible tool, to the point that it has become a mere object that can be used to produce unusual sounds. His body of work, that references Jackson Pollock, Marcel Duchamp and John Cage, is the quintessence of prepared guitar music.