Still in the Woods
Rootless Tree

THE REVIEW

"Let's see if I remember how to write a review" on debasio.

Paper has a millennia-long history and varied, sometimes excessive, usage, but one particular use has alienated me for quite some time, gifting me leisure and awareness.

I'm talking about the art of origami, which has involved me for just over a decade. It gives me serenity, concentration, and fulfillment. It allows me to construct something figurative, voluminous, and concrete, from a smooth, flat, and seemingly insubstantial sheet of paper.

It is something psychologically satisfying, as well as relaxing. Every year, after months and months of inactivity, I always ask myself:

"Let's see if I remember how to do it."

I have almost always opted for classical music as an accompaniment during these moments, from Beethoven to Debussy, from Mussorgsky to Bach, but amid a valley fold and a pocket base, I decided to experiment. In experimenting, fortunately with taste, I found a nearly debuting German band.

With only one EP released ("In my own arms" in 2016) and this first album, in my opinion, extraordinary, changeable, parabolic.

There is a very commendable, almost obsessive, musical research in "Rootless Tree" (2018). Nothing is left to chance in this jazz album. Neo Jazz? Indie Jazz? Who cares.

The rhythm is driving (Raphael Seidel on bass and Jakob Hegner on drums), the harmonies are deep (Robert Wienröder on piano and Fender Rhodes), and the magnetism accompanying every single track is tied to the vocal tapestry of Anna Hauss, a Berlin singer born in 1994.

I am not in the position to do a track by track analysis, due to the overwhelming amount of information that would be required to do so; probably, it doesn't even interest those who want to read, but certainly, the 12 tracks are divided into 6 chapters:

"Still Rootless" - "Rootless Tree";

"Still Awake" - "Black Hole", "Dark Night" and "In Between";

"Still Divided" - "Lost In Thoughts" and "Bubbles";

"Still Searching" - "Small" and "Little Boxes";

"Still a Child" - "Playground" and "All Those Close To Him";

"Still in the Middle" – "Don't Walk Away" and "Behind Your Mind".

It's a journey that begins and doesn't end, it's left open.

The vocal overlaps are like the refinements on a formed skeleton, the rhythmic fittings (with Richard Holzapfel in the title track "Rootless Tree") are accordion folds, complicated interweavings, almost unconscious, that give entity to the body, while the harmonies are flower bases from which the spontaneous nature of this evolving music arises.

It's a small, precious, fragile piece of art that awakens my musical instinct and I say once again, taking the piano in hand

"Let's see if I remember how to do it"