Kammerflimmer Kollektief, Schemen, Germany, Karl Records, KR101 CD / 180 gr LP (2023)
Karlsruhe-based experimental free-jazz combo Kammerflimmer Kollektief goes back a long, long way, back to 1996, the year the group was founded by guitarist Thomas Weber. The group’s membership has seen many musicians come and go but one constant member since 2002 has been Heike Aumüller on harmonium and vocals. Johannes Frisch joined the band in 2010 on double bass and together these three musicians have been Kammerflimmer Kollektief’s core members. “Schemen” (“Scheme”) is the group’s eleventh album in 25 years, and their first in five years, and features (as all their other albums do) front cover artwork by Aumüller.
The music starts “Erstes Kapitel: verschliffen“ (“First Chapter: slurred”) by ranging through the spacey psychedelic / prog rock spectrum in a free-jazz context, with the only thing seemingly holding all the sounds, melodies and tonal wash together being a hazy and benign warm ambience. By the way, all eight tracks are treated as chapters from one to eight with a very brief and terse description of what the music is or does on each chapter. “Zweites Kapitel: ruckartig” (“Second Chapter: jerky”) is where Aumüller comes in on harmonium which turns out to be the one stable feature of a noisy convulsing track being pulled apart and thrown in one direction and then another. “Drittes Kapitel: ungesagt, dann vergessen” (“Third Chapter: unsaid, then forgotten”) starts out as a gorgeous if melancholy, almost weepy piece that then goes completely crazed halfway through before picking itself up and gliding offstage.
From here on, the remaining chapters tend to be rather short which is unfortunate as some of the music here really need time to develop and become absorbing soundscapes to reach its full potential. “Fünftes Kapitel: kreuzweis” (“Fifth Chapter: crosswise”) stutters and lurches about so quickly that if you sneeze, you’ll miss it completely. Of these tracks, “Sechstes Kapitel: herausgewunden” (“Sixth Chapter: foundout”) is the stand-out piece, beginning as a lovely atmospheric piece redolent of warm balmy weather after summer rain with echoing guitar melody fragments, droning harmonium before transforming into a busy noisy work led by an ever-changing sequence of drumming rhythms and beats.
There are some incredible soundscapes to be found on “Schemen”, all filled with ambiguity and the tension that arises from that quality, but frustratingly the musicians keep them short and unresolved (deliberately perhaps, to heighten that tension) rather than explore or ramble through them and leave listeners hanging from a cliff and looking down into the treacherous canyons of silence or static far below. A very pleasant if rather short recording for a band whose output has been sporadic over the past ten years.