Caterina Barbieri & Bendik Giske, “At Source” (light-years, 2026)
I am always skeptical of collaborations between two solo artists with cool and unique visions, as the result is usually an underwhelming compromise or a collection of half-baked edits of improvisations, but there are occasionally wonderful exceptions to that trend and this is one of them. In hindsight that makes perfect sense, as both Barbieri and Giske excel at waving magic from obsessively repeating patterns and primal sax howls make an excellent counterbalance to gleaming futuristic synthscapes.
In fact, the album’s title is an allusion to that shared vision and the duo’s perfect balance of opposing forces, as they avoided outside influences in order to achieve a “spontaneous, graceful and natural” union through “creative confrontation.” The other crucial ingredients were time and chemistry, as this collaboration first began at a post-lockdown 2021 residency in Milan, but these pieces were reworked and sharpened to perfection when Giske joined Barbieri on her light-years tour.
That said, this union was definitely not without some significant growing pains, as the duo mention that some of Barbieri’s “stepped patterns were near-impossible to translate for Giske’s body to perform” and that they sometimes needed to resort to “mathematical resolutions” to synchronize their playing. It certainly seems like Giske felt such obstacles much more intensely than Barbieri (“It forced me to go to the core of what I am and what I have to offer”), which amusingly reminds me of a chess master straining to anticipate the next moves of a supercomputer that was designed to defeat him. In the hypothetical chess game of At Source, however, that rivalry instead dissolves into a neon and chrome dreamscape that occupies the “liminality between the machine and the human.” Hell, even the song titles are references to the “abstract and cosmic” headspace conjured up by Giske and Barbieri’s opposing forces, as each piece is “named with two evocative words that contain the two poles of their sound.”
For example, on the opening “Intuition, Nimbus,” Giske’s fluttering sax patterns gradually ascend from a backdrop of bleary synth abstraction “like a flock of birds lifted skywards on thermal columns.” Notably, that was the first piece that the duo composed together and it is something of a subtle outlier, as Barbieri provides a gently billowing and spacy ambient backdrop for Giske’s flickering, snarling, and howling trill patterns. There is quite a bit more going on than just that, however, as Giske’s sax flutters fitfully ignite while languorously fading in and out of focus and Barbieri’s synths wax, wane, streak, smear, undulate, and dissolve into fog.
Interestingly, that piece segues into the more characteristically lattice-like terrain of “Alignment, Orbit,” but Barbieri’s web of interwoven patterns is propelled by a percussion performance from Giske that I would have guessed was a sample from some cool ‘70s African percussion ensemble if I did not know better. While it is admittedly my least favorite of the album’s four pieces, that is only because the other three are so strong, as I definitely enjoy both the lurching, oddly timed groove and Giske’s snarling and serpentine sax loops.
To my ears, “Impatience, Magma” is the album’s stone-cold masterpiece, as Giske plays a gorgeously soulful and melodic solo over an achingly beautiful and frayed synth loop. Somehow, things only get better from there, as a second sax track soon begins to intertwine and duel with the first one while they both pan around spatially. At the same time, Barbieri’s synths gradually become more blurting, honking, and distended before sneakily cohering into a strong melodic hook.
Notably, all of it rules and that last bit felt very final to me, as it coincided with the fading presence of Giske’s sax, so I actually exclaimed “No! Stop! You had a perfect song!” aloud when a fresh synth motif started to burble forth from the haze. As it turns out, however, that second act is every bit as brilliant as the first, as that motif quickly becomes a bouncy, rolling, and ever-expanding juggernaut of layered synth motif while Giske unleashes an impressively killer and howling duel-sax crescendo. In short, it’s an absolute stunner of a piece.
Improbably, however, the closing “Persistence, Buds” is a bit of a stunner as well, as Giske’s breathy and sensuous sax melodies languorously drift across a beautifully wistful and swaying synth motif. Unsurprisingly, however, things are not destined to remain as they seem, as Barbieri’s synths vibrantly twinkle, streak, transform, and leave ghost trails as they slowly dissolve into a haze. That haze soon begins to ascend heavenward and smear into dreamlike bliss, however, and a host of alternately crystalline, submerged, echoing, and subtly curdled melody fragments flickeringly appear like mirages until the last bit of dream-fog finally dissipates. Listening to it on headphones, I repeatedly got chills, which is probably the highest praise (“triggers involuntary waves of pleasure”) that you can really bestow on a song or album. This is an instant album of the year contender for me.
Listen here.
