Fujii has never been interested in tidy landings, only in seeing where the flock goes next.
Libra Records
Satoko Fujii — composer, conductor; Liz Kosak — synthesizer/electronics; Matthias Müller — trombone; Michael Griener, Peter Orins — drums; Gerhard Ullmann, Matthias Schubert — saxophone; Lina Allemano, Nikolaus Neuser, Natsuki Tamura — trumpet; Jan Roder — bass; Paulina Owczarek — baritone saxophone
Thirty years and twenty-five-plus large ensemble records in, Satoko Fujii is still finding new ways to write for a big band. Second Attempt, her third outing with Orchestra Berlin, grew out of a technique she’s used for years to cue soloists — short, unordered fragments, signaled to the band by hand as the piece unfolds, with no fixed sequence. This time she made the technique the whole composition, not just its scaffolding. The result doesn’t sound like a big band so much as a flock that’s agreed, temporarily, to fly in the same direction — held together by gesture, not chart, scattering and reconverging on Fujii’s cue.
What’s striking is how much the record trusts silence and half-silence. “Part 1” opens somewhere near a whisper — electronic rumbles that barely register, then start to take over, morphing as they go, a low metallic drone weaving in and out before receding back into the morass. When the horns finally arrive, trombonist Matthias Müller doesn’t so much play notes as let them fall out of the horn, and by the piece’s close the band has turned feral: braying, whining, shouting, trilling notes curdling into screams, like a flock of vultures excited over fresh road kill.
Fujii keeps handing the wheel to different instrumentalists and letting the rest of the ensemble improvise around them. Michael Griener and Peter Orins drive “Part 2” like two drummers trying to outdo one another at making non-drum sounds: scraping, rattling, empty cans tossed around, or luggage being dragged across the floor. The band stirs — horns squawk at the edges, electronics crackle like a bad circuit shorting out, and Gerhard Ullmann’s tenor sax goes free-form, lurching into hard squealing before snapping back into repeated phrases while both drummers hammer away underneath.
In the original concert performances of “Part 3,” the band traded instruments for crumpled and torn newspapers. On record it plays like someone shuffling around your bedroom while you’re still half-asleep. Grunts and brays surface, then electronics ease in and the band noodles, testing the water before committing to anything, circling a simple melody that sounds worn out before it even finishes. Both drummers kick off “Part 4,” and the whole thing blows open from there: trumpeter Lina Allemano blares in jagged fragments over thundering drums, then Fujii yanks the ensemble sideways into a bass solo from Jan Roder that drops the bow, picks up single notes, then bows again — pure exploration, nothing like a walking line. Saxophonist Matthias Schubert searches through phrase after phrase, ascending, descending, until the sax sounds like a wounded animal in need of help.
Baritone saxophonist Paulina Owczarek opens “Part 5” alone, repeating a phrase, notes sputtering, some held past where you’d expect. Behind her the band takes its time building steam — horns warming up, in no hurry, until they land together on a hint of dissonance, then pause. What follows runs down rather than up: a lethargic drop, barely-there percussion, a trumpet that can barely blow through the horn before finding a couple of clear-toned, descending phrases. Then Natsuki Tamura arrives sounding possessed, vocalizing through his horn like something between language and noise, trilling out a few short blaring phrases and more of the same crazed vocals. It’s a strange way to end a suite this physical, but it fits: Fujii has never been interested in tidy landings, only in seeing where the flock goes next.
