Fuubutsushi - "Loop Trail" (American Dreams)
- The Slow Music Movement
- 37 minutes ago
- 2 min read
Fuubutsushi were born in the lockdowns during the age of virus and were an instant TSMM fave, setting the bar for remote recording projects during the period. Consisting of Patrick Shiroishi from Los Angeles on alto/tenor saxophones, clarinet, flute, glockenspiel, samples, whistling and voice, Chris Jusell from Raleigh on violin, Matthew Sage now in Colorado on keyboards, percussion, voice and field recordings, and Salt Lake City's Chaz Prymek on guitars, field recordings and voice. They definitely made the most of their free time.
The quartet finally transformed the music into concert at the Columbia Experimental Music Festival (to this day Fuubutsushi’s only live appearance), surely no mean feat turning the recordings made in isolation into a live, group endeavour, especially considering the group’s stylistic diversity? Well the live show is about to be made widely available on the Columbia Deluxe album released via American Dreams, so the geographically challenged can also enjoy the fruits of this performance.
“Loop Trail” originally appeared on the Birthingbodies EP that the group released in September of 2022, shortly before the Columbia Deluxe performance; the original being a different beast to the live version, surely a testament to the groups experimental and improvisatory abilities?
The original was a fuller bodied and, despite the similar energy levels, somehow "smoother" affair. For this live version Chaz's soft guitar refrain guides the way, the other players seemingly hypnotised by its simple joy and taking longer to join the fray, then inclined to sit back a bit further so as not to overly disturb its mesmeric quality and distract from the tale of a Japanese woman who survived one of the second world war's atomic explosions, that Shiroishi decided to overlay - further disguising the original and probably giving doubt to those in the audience that were trying to place the song from the original recordings. It's a fine live interpretation of the original and boding very well for July 11th's full release.
Playlist Companion
Find Fuubutsushi in the Slow Oddities Playlist: