Fennesz Sakamoto, Fred Lonberg-Holm Trio

Fennesz Sakamoto - Mono (Touch 2007)

Fennesz Sakamoto – Cendre / Touch

About five years ago, I became somewhat immersed in Ray Kurzweil’s book, The Age of Spiritual Machines (I am a sucker for science and technology). Published in 1999 (and updated in 2005 as The Singularity is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology), the book details at length the exponentially increasing evolution of technology, specifically artificial intelligence and the possibility of a manufactured consciousness, and how this technological-evolutionary jump very well may happen in our lifetime. Basically, according to his law of accelerated returns (exponentially advancing technological, social and cultural evolution), the functionality of the human brain will be not only quantifiable in the near future but also re-creatable in terms of technology, and in theory this could produce synthetic consciousness. The “real” world and the technological world would mesh into one and there will be a singular, infinite existence (infinite because of the paralleling advancement in nano- and medical technology). I know it’s a large pill to swallow, but just think back twenty years ago before the assimilation of the Internet. And since you are reading this right now, you currently exist in our minute Audiversity home surrounded by a mind-boggling vast interconnected virtual world. It is not like we are going to revert in a technological standpoint; it’s only going to integrate further and deeper with what we now refer to as reality. Yes, it’s some crazy fascinating shit.

Ok though, this is an audioblog, not some futurist message board, so I need to get back to the present and discuss the music at hand. If there were ever a soundtrack that could exist in this seemingly inevitable world of indiscernible virtual and organic reality, it would be Fennesz Sakamoto’s Cendre. In fact, there may be no better album to contemplate along with while lounging beneath static clouds on fields of 0s and 1s with your synthetic companion--so specifically and finely designed to fit seamlessly with your personality that she/he/it is essentially a continuation of yourself--than Cendre. It’s a marriage of composed electronics and acoustics that melt into one emotionally resonating hum from two of the most acclaimed purveyors of their field, Christian Fennesz and Ryuichi Sakamoto. And it’s gorgeous, whether you are discerning the vibrations through the complicated receivers of the ear or the electronic equivalent.

Not only are we crossing mediums with Cendre, but styles, geographic locales, and generations as well. A genre-bending icon, especially in his native Japan, Ryuichi Sakamoto provides the acoustical half of the album as well as some laptop tweaking. His most notable reference point is that of his band, the techno-pop trio Yellow Magic Orchestra, which rose to fame in the early 80s and is highly regarded as the Eastern version of Kraftwerk. A classically trained pianist, Sakamoto has spent his 30+-year career exploring musical fusions and formats, from classical pieces to pop collaborations to Academy Award-winning scores. His piano playing on Cendre though is patient and highly restrained, opting for deeply thoughtful and resonant strokes of the keys to counteract Fennesz’s static flourishes. Every tone seems to have meaning, and on the flip side, every crackle seems to feel its sincerity.

The electronic side of Cendre, created via highly treated pathways of a six-string guitar, is Vienna-based sound designer Christian Fennesz, who has been turning heads with his freeform ambience since the mid-90s. A staple of the acclaimed Mego label, Fennesz like Sakamoto works in a number of different fields, especially for multimedia art exhibitions, but is most noted for his electric-acoustic experiments. As of late, his re-released Endless Summer from 2000 has once again sent critics abuzz (including myself) about his bridging of human and electronic tones.

Together they create something undeniably beautiful with both its pristine clarity of melancholic feeling in acoustic resonance and in the harnessing of the inimitable random crackle of white noise. Crafted by electronically swapped ideas, there is no compositional leader in the duo; one song may be initiated by a Sakamoto chord while another by a Fennesz atmosphere. That is probably the main reason why each of these twelve songs sound so thematically attuned, but still discernibly different than the next despite the minimal tools involved.

Fennesz Sakamoto creates a music that both my laptop and myself can enjoy. While I obviously can’t speak for my thin plastic friend, I can only imagine such warm, textural music must feel as good translating from bits to soundwaves as it does from soundwaves to neuron transmissions. We still may be separate entities at this point, but certainly no human being shares the same connection, by way of captured thoughts and secrets, that my laptop and me do, and I think that counts for something. Like Christian Fennesz and Ryuichi Sakomoto’s blurring of electronics and acoustics on Cendre, so is our surrounding world in terms of technology and environment. We have got an infinitely interesting future ahead of us, and I for one look forward to experiencing it.





Fred Lonberg-Holm Trio - There Never Was a Reason (Atavistic 2007)

Fred Lonberg-Holm Trio – Terminal Valentine / Atavistic

In the context of jazz, performers known solely for their mastering of the cello in particular are few and far between. Off the top of your head, name me just one… and no, Yo-Yo Ma does not count and will lose my respect if that is your answer. It’s tough. For one reason or another, it is just an instrument that doesn’t seem to find it’s way into a notable jazz line-up. Maybe it has something to do with it’s rich, bold sound that dominates any frequencies surrounding it, the fact that it’s lush vibrations immediately resound with melodrama, or perhaps because the bass has just evolved as the low-end of choice and it was just a matter of chance. Luminaries on the instrument, again in the context of jazz, can seemingly be counted on one hand: Fred Katz, Abdul Wadud, Hank Roberts, ummm… see what I mean. The fact of the matter is that most innovators of the cello are highly respected bass players first who look to the dwarfed violone to further their musical explorations. Harry Babsin, Ron Carter, Sam Jones and Oscar Pettiford are all great examples of this. The cello is just an underused resource in the realm of jazz and for the most part, popular music as a whole, hence Chicagoan Fred Lonberg-Holm’s ridiculously busy schedule as the go-to cellist in the city's bustling underground avant-garde scene.

In the last decade-and-a-half, Lonberg-Holm has quickly risen through the sparse ranks of in-demand cellists in jazz and experimental rock. The musically ambidextrous Delaware native studied composition with avant-garde genius Anthony Braxton and minimalist composer Morton Feldman before striking out on his own, first in New York City and then relocating to Chicago in the late 90s. His résumé stretches a mile long, from experimental big bands like Anthony Braxton’s Creative Orchestra and Crisis Ensemble to radio and television spots to composing music for Mr. Bungle’s William Winant and free jazz connoisseur Kevin Norton to leading improv acts like the Light Box Orchestra and Pillow to performing with Ken Vandermark, Peter Brötzmann and Jim O’Rourke to leading his own groups like Terminal 4 and the Fred Lonberg-Holm Trio; and that’s the extremely short-list. When you are the top player in your field, respect is given in work and Lonberg-Holm is a very busy man.

For his third album with his trio, including bassist Jason Roebke (a student of Roscoe Mitchell and frequent collaborator with Vandermark, Toshimaru Nakamura and Rob Mazurek among many others) and drummer Frank Rosaly (Crisis Ensemble), and recording for Chicago’s Atavistic Records, Lonberg-Holm continues to perfect his balance between accessible and challenging avant-garde jazz. More demanding than his work with Terminal 4 and his previous two Atavistic releases, A Valentine for Fred Katz and Other Valentines, Terminal Valentine finds the cellist perhaps testing his love of intimacy and warmth by adding a little bit of grit to the relationship. He is still very much grounded in his attraction to lulling lyrical melodies, but frequently counteracts them with explorations in the outer edges of such warmth. It is almost like he is teasing his girl, showing her undoubting affection then testing her reaction to the cold shoulder; he wants to know exactly what makes her tick and to do that you have got to submit her to a range of situations.

The warmth and intimacy of this recording sucks you in completely. Lonberg-Holm’s cello weaves and kneads and occasionally scathes with confidence and sincerity while Rosaly’s drumming is spry but effective and Roebke plucks with subdued proficiency. They sound very much tuned-in with each other, painting with the same autumnal hues without ever muddling the individual colors. Songs like “Three Note Song.” “There Never Was a Reason,” and “There’s No Way” utilize melody with great efficiency, drawing the listener in with longing affection and then demanding they work for such intimacy by jumping in and out of the framework of the song. This is late night music for those of us who refuse to give into the spoon-fed melodrama of 95% of the music out there.

No kidding, I have listened to this album on repeat for three days straight now. Maybe it’s my current lady-clouded mindset or the amazingly soothing Chicago spring nights with the window’s wide open, but Terminal Valentine is exactly the music of my moment. And as I rambled about in the first paragraph, it makes me wonder even more how the cello is not utilized more in jazz. Yes the vibrations it makes are more attuned to lush classical extravaganzas, but as Lonberg-Holm has repeatedly showed us, it can be a multi-dimensional boundary-pushing beast.