All-star team-up alert! Or at least they're stars if you have the good taste and decency to recognize them as such. Two prolific experimental musicians, American guitarist Bill Orcutt and Guatemalan cellist/vocalist Mabe Fratti, have joined forces for a new album called Almost Waking. That's cool. That's very cool.
The album is coming in May, and two songs are out today. The title track is a warm, placid instrumental duet between Orcutt's guitar and Fratti's cello, while the similarly gentle "El inicio es cuestión de suerte" brings Fratti's voice to the fore. These two have been responsible for some absolutely cataclysmic music, but they're just as capable of taking your breath away by going soft.
Some words from Fratti:
I had known about Bill’s music for a while: since his 2017 release under his own name. I connected a lot with his music and I had no idea that years later we would be collaborating! It was a total surprise that we started chatting on the internet of collaborating! — we bounced ideas back and forth, all starting with a series of guitar solo stuff that Bill sent me. I had a great time with the pieces and in some of them had the honor to collaborate with I. La Catolica in the studio here in Mexico as well where we were trying to decipher the harmonic possibilities of Bill’s ideas and very carefully develop some good melodies that followed correctly the guitar. The vocal melodies followed also the same principle of trying to get tight with Bill’s iniciatives. The idea was to leave a lot of space but in only one of the tracks I just went on with the idea of harmonizing shamelessly the vocals. The album ended up having this nostalgic vibe to it. I am so happy on how it turned out and grateful with the crazy coincidence that made it happen!
On social media, Orcutt adds:
A couple years ago Mabe Fratti made the mistake of mentioning my name in a list of her favorite albums. I immediately sent an email proposing a collaboration. And today you can hear the first two singles. The album releases on May 22 on Tin Angel.
Orcutt's new four-guitar album Music In Continuous Motion is dropping this Friday. Last year he put out Another Perfect Day, teamed with Steve Shelley and Ethan Miller in the blown-out rock band Orcutt Shelley Miller, and released a live album with the Bill Orcutt Guitar Quartet. Fratti teamed with I. la Católica last year for an incredible album as Titanic and covered Lucretia Dalt.
Hear "Almost Waking" and "El inicio es cuestión de suerte" below.
TRACKLIST:
01 "Almost Waking"
02 "El Inicio es cuestión de suerte"
03 "Forced & Forced & Forced"
04 "Arise from Graves and Aspire"
05 "The Heaven of our Misery"
06 "Steps of the Sun"
07 "Todo puede ser error"
08 "A Rural Pen"
Almost Waking is out 5/22 via Tin Angel.
