Fernweh (vinyl LP)

Originally released on Giuseppe Ielasi and Jennifer Veillerobe's impeccably curated Senufo Editions in 2012, "Fernweh" stands near the beginning of the gradual expansion of Bonnet's approach after the austere acoustic textures of "Aerae" and "Algae" (both released on Senufo), leading to the lush, layered environments of recent solo works on Shelter Press, and the epic electronic expeditions undertaken in duo projects with Stephen O'Malley and Jim O'Rourke.
A major work in the Kassel Jaeger oeuvre, stretching over two LP sides, "Fernweh" draws together synthesized and musique concrète materials into a drifting assemblage. Its title refers to a sense of yearning for far-off places—fitting for this music that moves freely and unexpectedly between what Bonnet calls "climates". Beginning with fizzing electronics whose rhythm of gradual approach suggests breaking waves, the clinical atmosphere is soon haunted by intangible traces of lived reality. Textures call up wind, water, insects, the crunch of feet on sand, or the clinking of glasses, yet they can never be identified with certainty. At times, these concrete elements possess a vivid "closeness"; at others, the sounds shade into a formless distance. Though the listener forms no clear picture from the concrete sounds, these elements aerate the music, lending it their space.
Drawing from the rigorous formal language and conceptual apparatus of the French musique concrète tradition—with which Bonnet, as director of the GRM and researcher into its deepest archival recesses, is intimately familiar—the music of Kassel Jaeger is equally informed by how underground experimental music has rethought electroacoustic techniques. "Fernweh" at times calls up the grit and grime of para-industrial eccentrics like Maurizio Bianchi or the Toniutti brothers, and at other moments suggests the slow-moving grandeur of early Olivia Block.
Subtle features of dynamics and rhythm act as connective tissue between the numerous "scenes", with wave-like envelopes, rapid pulsations, and short, tape-loop patterns all recurring throughout the piece—shared ambiguously between electronic and concrete sounds. Amid these shifting, often inharmonic textures, the electronic elements sometimes cohere into melodic shapes and chordal patterns, cutting through the fog in distorted arcs or underpinning the layered surface with slow-moving harmonies.
Like his friend and collaborator Jim O'Rourke, Bonnet displays a radical openness at odds with academic tradition, allowing unabashed emotion to coexist with rigorous experimentation. As "Fernweh" dies away with mysterious shudders, listeners are left at once moved and unsure of exactly what they just heard.