Bill Orcutt & Mabe Fratti – Almost Waking
When performing on his own, prolific guitarist Bill Orcutt is at once dynamic and unpredictable, capable of breathtaking grace (hear his take on “Moon River,” for instance) or intensely physical playing that makes no allowances for preservation of his guitar’s finish. I once saw him play a solo set inside of a historic church in San Diego, and his improvisational performance style was akin to watching a thunderstorm in the distance—breathtaking in its beauty, but wild and powerful in its climactic moments. Yet it’s Orcutt’s collaborative work that reveals the breadth of his versatility, his tangled and turbulent yet frequently melodic approach always his own and always recognizable even in the context of duo improvisations with drummer Chris Corsano, exploring cosmic acid jams with Steve Shelley and Ethan Miller, or harmonizing with vintage gospel strings records on his curiously beautiful 2024 album How to Rescue Things.
Given Orcutt’s past work, it seems only fitting that he’d eventually cross paths with Mexico City-based singer, songwriter and cellist Mabe Fratti, the two artists sharing a similarly open and exploratory ethos yet two distinctive yet complementary aesthetic approaches. Fratti likewise previously performed with Corsano, and expressed admiration of Orcutt’s music in a feature on The Quietus, and the shout-out inspired him to reach out to her about working on a series of pieces together, the likes of which comprise Almost Waking. Crafted over the better part of a year, with each artist trading files back and forth, the eight chamber-folk pieces on Almost Waking are a gorgeous testament to the kind of beauty that can emerge from two musicians sharing a similar wavelength even when they’re thousands of miles apart.
Much like any of either artist’s past collaborative works, we hear their respective signature aesthetics come through with pristine clarity, a track like “Arise from Graves and Aspire” juxtaposing Fratti’s more nuanced melodies against Orcutt’s ecstatic improvisations high on the neck. Yet one of the more fascinating aspects of Almost Waking overall is that, for an album three-quarters composed of instrumentals, it’s more often than not those vocal-less pieces in which the most immediate hooks reside. “Forced & Forced & Forced” is one of them, an upbeat folk lilt that very nearly verges on a rock song, the distortion on Fratti’s cello cutting through Orcutt’s repetition as a blazing guitar solo might, escalating to more intense, aggressive feats in its final moments against its catchy, even downright pleasant melody. Though gentler and darker in tone, “The Heaven of Our Misery” captures a similarly accessible sensibility, its spacious and haunted opening progression giving way to something of a proper chorus driven by Fratti’s cello melody, Orcutt’s twinkles of guitar flashing around the edges. Moments like “Steps of the Sun” even create a sort of auditory illusion in which two musicians end up sound like an even larger band, as Fratti’s cello plucks take on a more percussive quality.
When Fratti adds her vocals to the mix, the results are no less gorgeous, even if more nuanced. “El inicio es cuestión de suerte” is a mesmerizing piece of ambient pop, Orcutt playing delicate and subtle repetitions that seem to hover in place, providing a vaporous platform for Fratti’s layered vocals to wrap themselves around. “Todo puede ser error,” by comparison, allows in more open spaces between Orcutt’s arpeggios, starkly beautiful in its gentleness, but never overshadowing Fratti’s emotionally mellifluous vocal performance.
When Fratti spoke to Treble back in 2024, she discussed how rewarding it was to meet people on tour and simply have the opportunity to talk to them about music: “whenever I have the chance to do it, it’s a very beautiful learning process…as I’ve traveled, I’ve learned that there’s a lot of conversations that I want to have.” What she and Orcutt have created together on Almost Waking feels like one of those conversations, one conducted through sound and melody rather than through words, the two artists’ distinctive and complementary styles finding a natural rhythm. Though only relatively recently acquainted, Orcutt and Fratti play together with an ease that feels more like that of two old friends.
Label: Tin Angel/Unheard of Hope
Year: 2026
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Bill Orcutt & Mabe Fratti : Almost Waking
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