Today, acclaimed ambient-jazz quartet Fuubutsushi share “Light in the Annex,” the second preview from Columbia Deluxe, their forthcoming album documenting the project’s first and only live performance—out July 11 via American Dreams. Formed as a remote collaboration during lockdown between four prolific, far-flung multi-instrumentalists—Patrick Shiroishi (The Armed, Wild Up), Chris Jusell (Rosalía, Lizzo, Silk Sonic), Chaz Prymek (Lake Mary), and Matthew Sage (Shabason, Krgovich, Sage)—the track offers another vivid glimpse of Fuubutsushi at their most exploratory and present, charged with the unpredictability of a debut performance.
On the newly released track, Fuubutushi share: "This was a really fun and rare opportunity for us to play a song live before releasing a recording. We were just starting to put together ideas for what would become Meridians, and “Light in the Annex” was an early contender. This version feels a little more wiley compared to the studio/album version. We find some pockets where we can really push moments of disorder or tension and release, which was certainly part of the experience for everyone—anticipation, tension, wonder, relief, and joy all mixed together."
“The music of Fuubutsushi,” Prymek says, “started as a recording project that turned into deep friendships.” After composing music remotely for their acclaimed cycle of four albums for each of the four seasons, the quartet transformed the music in concert at the Columbia Experimental Music Festival: Shiroishi on saxophones and field recordings, Jusell on violin, Sage on piano and synthesizer, and Prymek on guitar and bass, sharing bells, voice and electronics as a group. “I think we were all pretty nervous about it,” says Shiroishi, “but the audience was with us the entire time and really gave us an incredible amount of energy.” “Part of the thrill,” says Sage, “was that we knew the songs separately, kind of on our own terms. And how it felt to finally turn this music, which we made in such a physically isolated way, to finally come into being in person, for a really receptive audience in a really beautiful room.”
“Now,” says Prymek, “what you hear out of us is that energy spilling back into our music.” It flows seamlessly from one song to the next, giving the band room to range while maintaining structure. “Bolted Orange” runs just over three minutes on the band’s self-titled debut album: here the band expands it to ten, blossoming, like the first half of the album, around Prymek’s winding, circular guitar lines. Guitar introduces that song and “Shepherd’s Stroll,” followed by declarative piano from Sage. Saxophone and violin either outline the chordal instruments’ color or push them in new directions. In keeping with past releases, the band incorporates field recordings of Japanese Americans talking about their experience in American internment camps during WWII into the music, inviting listeners to confront the past, present and future.
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