Albums by this artist

Fontanelle (2000)

Fontanelle

Fontanelle

---

» PIERO SCARUFFI | STAFF WRITER

Fontanelle Fontanelle Kranky, 2000 RiYL: Jessamine, Can, Labaradford, Miles Davis

After the demise of Northwest indie rock stalwarts Jessamine, keyboardist Andy Brown and guitarist Rex Ritter formed Fontanelle and recorded a self-titled debut album. The disc features six instrumental jams that display the leaders' erudite knowledge of modern composition. Bowing to the likes of Soft Machine, John Cage, and Miles Davis, the duo concocts an organic flow of understated noises.

"Picture Start" (which clocks in at 10 minutes) weaves tonal and atonal piano patterns with spare guitar strumming and a steady beat. The jazz element is stronger in "Telephone Fade," but it never completely prevails. Improvisation is constrained by a rational scaffolding, and, while musical structure unfolds in subtle and uncertain ways, the feeling is one of tight control, not one of loose coupling.

The same applies to cacophony. While dissonance abounds, it never derails the composition. Keyboards and guitar walk a thin line at the edge of harmony, but they do so embracing each other. A corollary is that neither is the protagonist.

"Niagara"'s foggy trance relies on the thickest and busiest tapestry. The psychedelic, transcendental suspense of "29th & Going" pivots on the martial tones of the guitar and the raga-like wavering of the piano. Closing the album, the funk underpinnings of "Counterweight" dissolve in a discrete sequence of fractured melodies and timid echoes.

PIERO SCARUFFI | Piero Scaruffi runs the exhaustive music database Scaruffi.com. A native of Italy, he has also been praised for his work on the General Theory of Relativity, formal theories of the mind, and artificial intelligence. And no, we aren't making that up.