Schaum by Masayoshi Fujita, Jan Jelinek (review)

Schaum is the title of a recently released compact disc by the duo of Masayoshi Fujita and Jan Jelinek. Fujita plays the vibraphone, small percussion instruments, and everyday objects played as percussion instruments and used to augment the vibraphone. In the liner notes, Jelinek explains that Fujita “prepares” his vibraphone with “automotive objects, motorized screws, chains, and aluminum foil.” Jelinek himself performs on an Akai MPC 1000, first released in 2005, using it to create loops and textural sound layers.

Jelinek’s setup includes standard processing gear such as ring modulation, reverb, distortion, and equalization. Jelinek’s sound design aims to produce a “multi-layered structure, in which every layer has an individual clock.” His statement refers to how we might hear individual streams of material, existing in their own time framework.

Both players demonstrate a well-rehearsed control over their respective setups—nevertheless, the resultant layering can sound spontaneous or improvised. Jelinek describes their method thus: “It may sound not very subtle, but all pieces conform to the same principal: agglomeration. Expanding figurines, which grow within ten to fifteen minutes and come rapidly to an end.” Each track starts with what Jelinek calls a “proposal”—“a simple loop based on the MPC, which could be a simple bass line . . . [while] Masa [Fujita] is reacting in the form of a textural layer or melody. I react with another layer.” This process of reacting to one another is strengthened further when they come together in the studio to re-layer selected sections of the performed material. Most of the time the initial loop introduced by Jelinek continues throughout each track, and then disappears “under the weight of all the additional layers.”

The first track, Cin, is a good example of this procedure. The initial loop is almost consumed by the accumulation of new layers. The listener needs to absorb the perceived weight of the music because it is structured in a way that draws the listener into a dense combination of sounds. Listening directly to the mass of sound as it develops, one might envision oneself performing the material. Once so engrossed, you might focus your listening to more subtle aspects of the developing sound mass. Its development is completely improvisational, made up of two concepts: live improvisation, and then studio treatment. The duo’s utilization of improvisation is based on an antiphonal arrangement of reacting to each other, whether live or in the studio. Although the duo stays close to this formula of interacting, each piece generates nuance from the dense figurations of sound. The resultant series of patterns moves in and out of focus as the players switch from accompaniment to leader.

The players complement each other well. Jelinek describes Fujita’s performance as based on “a clear, precise language . . . almost no overtones, no chords.” Jelinek is committed to his “multi-channel setup of loopers” in order to provide “a rich textural setting.”

In track 2, Helio, the duo’s interaction highlights the use of acoustic sound sources. This piece can be heard as a study in timbral color, wherein each performer colors the patterns of the other person. The patterns used seem uncontrollable, although the sustained music in the background provides stability for the glitch-like figures in the foreground.

It may be more accurate to describe the glitch-like elements against the background of sustained music as a mixture of large washes of sound, along with small, granularized fragments. These textures interact in the same way that the players directly determine each other’s performance.

In track 3, Urub, Fujita’s percussion comes through with machinelike precision. In contrast, track 4, What You Should Know About Me, showcases another variation of the duo’s looping techniques. It becomes difficult to distinguish the source of these loops, thanks to the complex layering of material in this track. But this music creates a sense of forward momentum, not hampered by the dense counterpoint...