Furthering their longstanding dedication to the astounding electroacoustic explorations of Kassel Jaeger / François Bonnet, Black Truffle delivers a much-needed new vinyl edition of the artist’s immersive 2012 outing ‘Fernweh’. A major work of monumental scale rooted in a “longing for the unfamiliar”, unfurling across two sides, the album roughly marks the emergence of the densely layered sonorous environments that have defined his recent solo works and duo projects with Stephen O’Malley and Jim O’Rourke. Immersive, rigorous, unpredictable, and guided by an astounding sense of artistry, more than a decade down the road ‘Fernweh’ feels even more compelling than ever: a career defining statement by one of the most important voices in contemporary experimental electroacoustic music.

From its humble beginnings back in 2009, Oren Ambarchi's imprint, Black Truffle, has steadily picked up the pace and emerged as one of the most exciting labels working within the field of experimental sound. Guided by an artist’s ear, it’s delivered an incredible stream of contemporary and archival releases from David Rosenboom, Alvin Lucier, John Duncan, Tony Conrad, Crys Cole, Keiji Haino, Annea Lockwood, Marja Ahti, Kassel Jaeger, MEV, AMM, Charlemagne Palestine, Alvin Curran, Will Guthrie, Olivia Block, Richard Teitelbaum, and numerous others. While the scope, ambition and breadth within Black Truffle’s output is unparalleled - casting far afield across time and a diversity of practices - running through their catalog is a clear vision of collaboration, community, friendship, family, and mutual respect between the artists in Ambarchi's world. One such case is Black Truffle’s long-standing dedication to the work of Kassel Jaeger: the once mysterious musical moniker of François Bonnet, the prolific writer and artistic director of the legendary Parisian collective and studio Groupe de Recherches Musicales. A visionary and rigorous practitioner of contemporary electroacoustic music, Kassel Jaeger / Bonnet first appeared within the label’s catalog with two trio outings with Ambarchi and James Rushford - ‘Pale Calling’ (2016) and ‘Face Time’ - before returning again with the critically acclaimed, solo full-length ‘Meith’ in 2020.

First emerging during the mid 2000s, over the last decade, François Bonnet has remained an unmistakable force on both the French and global experimental scenes, sculpting a body of multidisciplinary work, bridging music, a prolific body of writing, and his many efforts at Groupe de Recherches Musicales, collectively presenting crucial connections between the optimistic, philosophical origins of electronic and electroacoustic music, their present incarnations, and futures yet to be seen. Deeply invested in the potential of sound as an elemental form, under the moniker of Kassel Jaeger, Bonnet has carefully constructed a body of subtle, thoughtful, and meticulously constructed recordings that push at the boundaries of his chosen field. Rigorously experimental without sacrificing the intimacies of self, his efforts as a composer and musician extend across live contexts and numerous critically heralded solo releases, as well as collaborations with Jim O'Rourke, Stephan Mathieu, Akira Rabelais, Oren Ambarchi, and James Rushford, among others. Remarkably prolific, since ‘Meith’ in 2020, we’ve been fortunate enough to bask in the glories of ‘Shifted In Dreams’, issued by Shelter Press, and ‘ARITHW (A Rift in the Horizon's Wall)’, released by the American imprint Sedimental, encountering the artist weaving his distinct palette of textural sonorities in mind-bending constructions of haunting beauty. Now, Black Truffle does us the great service of returning Kassel Jaeger’s wondrous 2012 full-length ‘Fernweh’, originally issued by Giuseppe Ielasi and Jennifer Veillerobe’s Senufo Editions, and long out of print. An astounding creative accomplishment in its own right, the album also rests at a crucial juncture in the artist’s career, roughly signaling the beginning of the gradual expansion of his evolution from the austere acoustic textures that marked his early releases, toward the lush, layered sonorous environments that have defined his recent solo works and duo projects with Stephen O’Malley and Jim O’Rourke.

A single work, extending across the LP’s two sides, ‘Fernweh’ utilizes a sonic palette of synthesized and concrète material, with its title being an indication to its guiding energy: fernweh being a German term meaning a “longing for the unfamiliar”, similar to, but distinct from, Wanderlust. Moving freely between what Bonnet calls ‘climates’, following unpredictable shifts in entropy and material elements, aspects of ‘Fernweh’ recall the technical and formal rigor embraced by many of the great composers who graced GRM’s studios over the years, interweaving fizzing electronics, traces of field recordings, complex layers of textures, and dense harmonics and tonalities within slowly evolving passages through detailed sonic landscapes that often recall the percolations of the natural environment: wind, water, insects, etc. Moving between passages that are remarkably inviting and seductive and tenser, more abrasive counterpoints that feel rooted in early industrial and DIY electronics of the late 1970s and early 80s, ‘Fernweh’ is anything but a passive listen. Every time the ear begins to understand its location and circumstances Bonnet throws a wrench in the cogs and delves into unfamiliar realms, while allowing each of these movements to feel like a perfectly harmonious and natural transition, as though moving through the passage of a day and different landscapes along the way: amongst “shifting, often inharmonic textures, electronic elements sometimes cohere into melodic shapes and chordal patterns, cutting through the fog”.

Contemporary electroacoustic music at its finest and most engaging, across the length of ‘Fernweh’, under the guise of Kassel Jaeger, François Bonnet effortlessly reveals himself to be a (then emerging) master of the form. Both mysterious and razor sharp with its specificities of form, material, and sense of abstraction, it’s an absolute masterstroke.