Minimalist Fusion

Collections of Colonies of Bees

Collections of Colonies of Bees - Fun - Customer (Polyvinyl 2004)



Fonica - Coda - Ripple (Tomlab 2003)




Miles Davis - John McLaughlin - Bitches Brew (Columbia 1969)





Minimalist music always seems to find its way into my personal heavy rotation. It's not that I don't enjoy more aggressive styles, but softer, more intricate music seems to find a deeper emotional level within me. There is also the notion that it is tougher to create, which is argueable, but the truth is anyone can make noise (though only a handful can do it well). Minimalist music comes in all shapes and sizes, from ambience to post-rock, but it all concentrates on manipulating tiny intricacies and snippits of sound into a sparse soundscape of emotive abundance. Today, labels like Leaf and Tomlab make a living on these moody atmospheres, and have formulated niches all their own within the style. For this post, I'm concentrating on the evolution of free jazz fusion from the late 60s to today.

The first track I selected is from Collections of Colonies of Bees, a side project of Chris Rosenau and Jon Mueller of instrumental post-rock group, Pele, fame. While I'm not familiar with their self-titled debut on U.K.'s The Rosewood Union label, their second full length, Customer, has repeatedly found its way into my heavy rotation. Originally recorded by a full band in the studio, Rosenau and Mueller used electronic manipulation to create 10 different versions of the same song. Repeatedly sliced, tweaked and reorganized, the music puts a strong emphasis on the relationship between space and time, along with acoustic and electronic. The notion that a piece of music can always be re-imagined and is never completely finished may be the underlying lesson here, and one that is sometimes lost in modern music. Customer was released on Polyvinyl Records (home to Pele), which is strange considering that they are most known for their highly addictive indie-pop (Mates of State, Aloha, Of Montreal).

The second track comes from a somewhat mysterious pair who call themselves Fonica. The japanese male-female duo of Keiichi Sugimoto and Cheason seem to have the same overall minimal aesthetic as C of C of B. I found a college-radio promotional copy of their album, Ripple, which is the only one that I am aware of, in the used bin of a record store, clearly tossed away by some clueless music director. I'm not sure what attracted it to me, but I was pleasantly suprised. Like Customer, it is a minimal blend of acoustic and electronic elements that seems crowded and sparse at the same time. Probably the result of clever mathmaticians, Ripple is an amazingly apt title seeing as each song seems to have one focal melody that transcends in any number of varities, each interweaving seemlessly with the next. The song I chose features oddly timed acoustic guitar strums that garnish more and more manipulation as the song progresses. Ripple was released on Tomlab Records, home to similarly creative artists like The Books, Final Fantasy and Casiotone for the Painfully Alone.

I decided also to include a track from the album that is claimed to be the starting point for free jazz-rock fusion, Miles Davis' Bitches Brew. I don't think that I really need to get into it that much, being as popular as it is, but it should be noted that it is somewhat responsible for opening the free jazz world to rock musicians and vice versa. Its easy to hear the influence of it even on just these two tracks. Named after the jazz guitar player featured on the infamous sessions, I chose 'John McLaughlin' simply for it being the shortest track. While there are many mixed reactions to Bitches Brew, it was clearly a revolutionary idea brought to masterfully to life by Miles Davis at his creative high.