Recording of the Week, Fabiano do Nascimento & Sam Gendel - The Room

Despite coming as their first collaborative effort on record, Sam Gendel and Fabiano do Nascimento’s partnership goes back further than one might think. The pair’s first encounter came in 2011, when the Brazilian musician performed in a restaurant owned by Gendel’s cousin; the envelope-pushing American joined in for an event that would spark the duo’s alluring bond. With their careers developing in an interweaving fashion over the past decade (including as part of a trio with percussion legend Airto Moreira), the years spent honing their craft in-between have been a frugal and creative timespan for both of them.

Safe to say, The Room is unlike any recording either of these artists have made before. Apart from their instruments to hand, each musician is left solely to contemplate the raw essence either one of them brings into the studio. The sheer presence of each performer, whose musicality remains untampered by electronics or software gadgetry, leaves plenty for their respective partner to engage with and respond to. Owing to the innocent nature of its reduced approach, the album could easily be mistaken for an ECM recording on account of the unheavy focus and clear-headed breeziness it holds from beginning to end.

A recording of this open vulnerability is perhaps not something one might come to expect from the LA-based saxophonist, whose recent projects have currently explored everything from ambient chillwave reimaginings of Duke Ellington standards to the glitchy depths of lofi bedroom hip-hop... resulting in some of the most interesting music to have come out of this decade alone! A key player with other West Coast groups like KNOWER along with its cohort of associates including Louis Cole and Sam Wilkes, Gendel’s contributions as well as his own work have come to embody the sound of technologically-inspired jazz tinged with the aesthetics of the post-internet age.

Meanwhile, do Nascimento has been making a name for himself on the global music scene as one of its leading figures as well. Ever seeking to expand his musical palette, he seldom loses the traditional flavour of his Brazilian heritage, supplemented by the acoustic fingerpicking of his nonstandard guitar – here, he opts for a seven-string in favour of his routine ten.

Quoted in an article for the LA Times, producer Blake Mills stated his belief that Gendel had “transcended the sound of the sax.” It’s a particularly prescient declaration given the written piece’s origins from all the way back at the apex of the pandemic. Fast forward to present day, and you can witness Mills’ premonition conclusively taking shape. There are times when the soprano saxophonist’s sombre tone more closely resembles that of a clarinet; at others, his supple chops allow him to surpass his instrument’s reedy profile to nimbly mimic the dexterity of a native flute. Beneath (or, more appropriately, ‘beside’) his supple melodicism, do Nascimento’s unfolding guitar speaks of an astral, ancestral quality. The extended range of his instrument simultaneously stretches its ability to draw both light and shade. Perplexingly enough, it’s at once brighter and darker ahan an acoustic ought to sound – and yet, that’s not to say it shouldn’t!

A watershed moment for Brazilian music came with the release of the heavy metal band Sepultura’s 1996 album Roots, in which the hard rockers shone a spotlight on the heritage and musical traditions of indigenous Xavante people. Thankfully, this proved to be a more harmonious pinpoint in the history of an otherwise abrasive relationship between settlers and minorities. In a similar fashion, The Room speaks to these all-but-lost cultures of music-making, borrowing from suggested traditions reduced not only to the margins of society but in memory as well.

The most surprising and certainly most rewarding feature is the neck-and-neck status the pair establish – this is an equally-supportive partnership, through and through. Neither player is trying to outdo the other, however, with the line between leader and accompanist having already dissolved long ago in favour of a well-balanced scale that shows no favouritism. What each member brings to the table is carefully controlled, considered and confident; not for the sake of competition, but simply for the posterity of this musical conversation and discussion. Their responses are hardly contrived but always correspond precisely to the demands of the album’s suite of dance-based themes, moods and attitudes.

If 2011 saw the beginning of the beautiful friendship between these two alternative siblings, The Room is its latest culmination.