{"id":3471,"date":"2022-02-15T12:00:10","date_gmt":"2022-02-15T11:00:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/fr-nt.nl\/?p=3471"},"modified":"2022-06-07T22:44:57","modified_gmt":"2022-06-07T21:44:57","slug":"fuubutsushi-luistert-aandachtig","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fr-nt.nl\/en\/2022\/02\/15\/fuubutsushi-is-listening-intently\/","title":{"rendered":"Fuubutsushi is listening intently"},"content":{"rendered":"

Fuubutsushi was only ever meant to be a one-off; an album made through Zoom and Dropbox at the height of the pandemic by four musicians - Matthew Sage, Chris Jusell, Chaz Prymek, and Patrick Shiroishi - who had never been in a room together. Just for the sake of it. Instead, close friendships were formed and a series of seasonally themed albums followed; albums of comfort, love, and attention.<\/strong> <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Written by: <\/strong>Ruben van Dijk
Illustration: <\/strong>Johanna Nolgard<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There is a scene in the 2021 Mike Mills film C\u2019mon C\u2019mon<\/em>, where radio journalist Johnny (played by Joaquin Phoenix) has taken his nine-year-old nephew Jesse to New York City for the first time and is showing him how to use his radio equipment, how to record sounds by simply pointing a microphone at them and, through it, listen to his surroundings more intently. \u201cYou know what I love about recording?\u201d Johnny asks Jesse, who is busy pointing a microphone at the traffic on Manhattan Bridge, \u201cYou get to keep these sounds, you get to keep them forever. You\u2019re making this mundane thing immortal.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

C\u2019mon C\u2019mon<\/em> deals with memory, and remembering through sound. After being introduced to recording, Jesse spends the majority of the film engaged in acts of preservation. Recording his uncle, recording himself, but mostly just wandering around city streets with a headset on, weeding through cacophony to find and record sounds that would from thereon carry significance for him and him alone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In its lush ambient foundation (featuring a superb score by Bryce and Aaron Dessner) and use of recorded sound as a narrative tool, C\u2019mon C\u2019mon<\/em> often reminded me of Natsukashii<\/em>, a collaborative album by Chris Jusell, Chaz Prymek, Matthew Sage and Patrick Shiroishi, and the final instalment in their Fuubutsushi<\/em> series. Both are attempts to reconcile with time, and to ultimately seek comfort in its passing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is easy to see why both C\u2019mon C\u2019mon<\/em> and the Fuubutsushi<\/em> series have resonated so much with their respective audiences, as we\u2019re entering the third year of a pandemic that has drastically altered the way many of us perceive time. The latter especially is a product of this unique moment in time, born from an excess of hours, made entirely through Zoom and Dropbox by four musicians who had never once been in a room together.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Watch the Time<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Violinist Chris Jusell, multi-instrumentalist Chaz Prymek and saxophonist Patrick Shiroishi were all aware of each other\u2019s existence. All of them were prolific artists in each other\u2019s musical periphery, had either met in passing or had mutual friends. But none of them had ever collaborated, until experimental artist Matthew Sage reached out to the three of them with a proposition. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sage had recently made a habit of more actively involving others in his work. His confounding album Seymour<\/em> <\/a> saw him coalesce seamlessly with likeminded composers Zander Raymond and Gianni Andreatta; back in 2019 he had already invited Jusell, Prymek and Shiroishi to each make their individual contribution to his solo effort The Wind of Things<\/em>.<\/a> . The excess of time and the looming apathy of pandemic life saw Sage pushing this a little further, inviting his colleagues not to contribute to his work, but to create something together; to form a band, with all members on other ends of one enormous country. Sage in Chicago, Jusell in Colorado, Prymek in Missouri, and Shiroishi in Los Angeles.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Whether it was out of boredom or trust in Sage, who had made a small name for himself with his Patient Sounds label (recently resuscitated as Cached Media), all invitees said yes to the project. Quickly a group chat was formed, some basic conversations were had about their shared love of ECM and the defunct new-age folk label Windham Hill Records, and within two weeks of Sage sending some unadorned piano tracks around, the album Fuubutsushi<\/em><\/a> <\/a><\/em> (September 2020) was done and dusted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"That\u2019s what people feel when they listen to the music; it\u2019s that we were communing \u2013 in a way that was sort of unnatural.\u201d<\/p>Matthew Sage<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Fuubutsushi\u2019 (\u98a8\u7269\u8a69), a Japanese word referring to a sense of seasonal nostalgia \u2013 longing for the approaching season upon its first sign \u2013 quickly became the group\u2019s moniker too. Because as soon as the first album was done, it was clear to all that more would follow, and so did Setsubun<\/em><\/a> <\/a><\/em>(February 2021), Yamawarau <\/em><\/a>) and Natsukashii<\/em><\/a> <\/a><\/em>(August 2021). That which turned out to be a seasonally themed series is now completed, but the release of the 25-minute song \u2018 \u2018Good Sky Day\u2019<\/a> in October 2021 implies that there\u2019s still plenty of fun to be had together for Sage, Jusell, Prymek and Shiroishi.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Shepherd\u2019s Stroll<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Because fun, or levity if you will, has always been at the core of Fuubutsushi, Sage tells me over Zoom. \u201cAt first, the idea was to just make a really warm, nice, easy record to listen to, because everyone was so stressed out.\u201d All musicians involved reined in their more abrasive, experimental tendencies. \u201cWe all tried to challenge ourselves to make something really sweet and forward, to explore something that was very much not in our own avenues,\u201d ending up with what Sage describes as being \u201ctoo sweet to be an ECM record.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Take the frivolous whistling and feather-light percussion on \u2018Chorus Wheel\u2019, or the pastoral \u2018Shepherd\u2019s Stroll\u2019 with its clarinet, wind chimes, and field recordings of bleating goats. It\u2019s almost aggressively quaint at times, but never to a fault. It\u2019s the chemistry of these four gifted musicians that keeps Fuubutsushi\u2019s music miles removed from the more insipid kind of new-age jazz; an audible chemistry that\u2019s all the more remarkable given the digital environment it was created in. <\/p>\n\n\n