Almost Waking lands sweetly between Bill Orcutt and Mabe Fratti's jagged edges and melodic balm

However, both Bill Orcutt and Mabe Fratti have made a habit of not playing it safe, with impressive results; Almost Waking is another winning outcome of venturing into unknown territory.

The album’s foundations could hardly be more 21st century. Orcutt spotted the nice things Fratti had said about his 2017 self-titled solo album in an online interview about musical inspirations for The Quietus and emailed the cellist (and vocalist) to suggest a collaboration. What ensued was a prolonged exchange of musical ideas amidst the musicians’ other engagements (Orcutt recently released his latest solo album Music in Continuous Motion as a quick follow-up to an encounter with what almost fits under the banner of ‘rock music’ as one third of improv power trio Orcutt Shelley Miller, whilst Fratti’s band Titanic released the much-acclaimed album Hagen last year).

Almost Waking presents the fruits of the remote team-up: eight tracks (six instrumental, two with Fratti’s subtly soaring vocals) that find a harmonious halfway point between earthy impressionism and dreamy lyrical beauty, via a process where Fratti (occasionally working with Titanic bandmate I. La Catolica) added texture and detail to Orcutt’s embryonic solo guitar explorations.

Almost Waking may be Orcutt’s cuddliest offering since 2024’s string- and chorus-enhanced near-festive album How to Rescue Things. Little about the 64-year old guitarist’s uncompromising approach has changed: Orcutt’s playing remains a contest between the mind and the body, with the physical pummelling of the strings often coming out on top, as clusters of jagged and spiky notes and bluesy motifs emerge unpredictably like a startled flock of birds fluttering off a fence. Fratti’s cello and occasional vocals wisely steer clear of trying to sweeten or sterilise Orcutt’s elementally raw approach. Instead, Fratti’s arrangements tiptoe around Orcutt’s jagged idiosyncrasies, creating a melodically rich, soothing yet robustly physical sound that often resembles chamber music that happens to have a healthy lining of dirt under its nails, and which manages to sound simultaneously unvarnished in its uncluttered directness and nuanced in its alluring detail. Occasionally (see the haunting vocal track “El inicio es cuestion de suerte” or the beautifully pensive “Steps of the Sun”), the results are downright majestic, pulsating with a wounded beauty.

Almost Waking is one of those rare fully satisfying collabs that amplifies the strengths of both individual artists: Orcutt’s guitar explorations get an injection of alluring extra stimuli, whilst Fratti focuses on the melodic prowess that occasionally felt submerged amidst the sensory overload and sudden shifts of Hagen.