Klotz, Wenzel, Vethake — Burst

Three artistic talents from Berlin - Manuel Klotz, Karla Wenzel and Tobias Vethake - all currently circumnavigating the musical avant-garde driven by the thrill of no boundaries, improvisation and freeform creation. Klotz is nominally a sound designer focussed on free jazz and noise, while Wenzel is a songwriter and sound scapist and Vethake a composer for film and performance art, and the three artists have now united to produce a work of jazz-minded music inspired by the likes of pioneers Ornette Coleman, Caspar Brotzmann and Cecil Taylor, but which deviates from the both the means and structures of those particular masters. A wonderfully inventive and deeply engaging piece of work, Burst stands totally alone in its uniqueness.

Wenzel and Vethake, bassist and cellist respectively, first worked together back in 2017 as Slutty Clowns. Wenzel had built a reputation as a player of lost and found instruments, having worked as a singer for Berlin off-swing band Bohemian Crystal before turning her hand to combining classical songwriting, field recordings and soundscapes. Vethake, on the other hand placed the electric cello at the centre of his creative endeavours composing music for film, theatre and art via his own label blank records. Photographer-cum-musician Klotz meanwhile got to know the duo when he released the Slutty Clowns’ debut on his label Loft Editions – a base for his sound collages that draw on free jazz and drone. Despite Klotz joining forces with Vethake for the latter’s Sicker Man Dialog album, Burst sees the musicians  participate in their first collaboration proper as a trio – one that features Klotz on saxophone, Vethake on electric cello and Wenzel on bass, while all three provide drums and electronics (in one form or another).  

Burst doesn’t just begin it explodes into life. ‘Burst 1’ is a cacophony of sound - of voices, of instruments encircling each other in the nine circles of hell. This is not a light introduction; this is a baptism by fire. There is so much happening here as your ears are drawn deep into the aural onslaught. Only three and a half minutes, the opener awakens your soul before fading out with voice and a crack. ‘Burst 2’ is more low key and discordant. Percussion, guitar and saxophone collide within a free-jazz framework that is both heavy and industrial in essence - a wall of noise that builds in ferocity and depth so that by ‘Burst 3’ we are thrown full force into the experimental jazz aesthetic at its most powerful – percussion leading the way, eruptions of saxophone in the ether.

‘Burst 4’ hits with a looping German voice – as instruments appear hesitantly, the voice slowing overtaken by sax, and electronics as the trio play with pitch and speed. The cello scratches and probes and the effects begin to terrify with their otherworldly vocal play. Think Suspiria’s ‘Witch’. The final official track, ‘Burst 5’ starts  with a Mica Levi-esque wooze. Dominant sax - more ethereal, more downtempo; intense in a different way. Building trepidatiously, as the cello adds gravity. The two bonus tracks simply add to the already established ambiance as low-key jazz is overlaid with electronica. This is an album that is full, and rich and demands multiple listens. Listen here.