Ancient Future - Willits + Sakamoto

Ancient Future

Willits + Sakamoto

Ghostly International.

SCQ Rating: 79%

Earlier this year Flumina, the third collaboration between Ryuichi Sakamoto and Fennesz, blindsided me. A massive undertaking – two hours in length and homogenous, as it turns out, in all the right ways – but somehow its beauty caught me off-guard, needling its way past my defenses in tiny increments. That record not only amped up my anticipation for Ancient Future, in which Sakamoto again lends his piano talents to an electronic framework, but it has also adapted my approach; instead of unsuspecting, my expectations going into this collaboration turned quite imposing.

As with Flumina, it quickly became apparent that Ancient Future doesn’t cater much to expectations. Unsullied guitar figures tiptoe around delicate electronic sheets and echoed piano without an overt trajectory in mind, making for an instrumental album one savors but doesn’t get aggressively “amped” for. And even though Willits improvises over pre-recorded Sakamoto compositions much like Fennesz did, providing clouds of ambience and a shifting sense of gravity, the outcomes betray similar origins. As a duo, Willits + Sakamoto show greater tonal range, stretching beyond the overcast ambient-plus-piano model for some faint percussive presence grounding the flurry of “I Don’t Want To Understand” and warm guitar-playing that adds an abstract jazz element (think ECM-styled noodling) to “Abandoned Silence”.

Whereas many collaborations of this ilk fall prey to the trappings of mood-music, each of Ancient Future’s six tracks explore subtly distinct raison d’êtres without sacrificing a cohesive temper. Lyrical and reserved, Ancient Future resounds the magic of Sakamoto’s best partnerships (Fennesz, Alva Novo) but with a whole new language.

Flumina - Fennesz + Sakamoto

Flumina

Fennesz + Sakamoto

Touch Records.

SCQ Rating: 83%

Although few names feature as prominently in the realms of textured ambience and classical piano as Christian Fennesz and Ryuichi Sakamoto, respectively, it would be disingenuous to assert that the duo have gotten the proper mileage out of this collaboration. It’s true that their shared work has sustained itself on engaging and atmospheric compositions but Fennesz and Sakamoto have also preserved a submissive approach that critics accuse of condoning the creation of “background music”.

If the sum of these composers’ parts has felt somehow less than their prolific individual halves, Flumina will change no one’s opinion on first approach. These twenty-four tracks, numbered instead of named and spread across two discs, would hang together the same way had you shuffled them blindly and played it through. What Flumina lacks in punch and precision, it makes up for with flow; taken in handfuls or in the full two-hours’ worth, this body of work shapes itself into an ocean of ambience – impossible to navigate and overpowering.

Describing highlights in this case would be a waste for words; each track ruminates on a strict palette of haunting ambient smears and piano that, whether meandering or building, works effectively. Once it has been digested over the course of countless listens, Flumina’s many tracks condense from a uniform and overlong sleeper into something radiant and compositionally eclectic. For those who lack the patience, however, this generous offering from Fennesz and Sakamoto should only cement opinions – namely, that Flumina is nothing more than accumulating mileage.