addict culture january 2020

"The creation of this piece of musical craftsmanship took place in 2017, during their joint tour in Japan. Sirjacq and Hooson settled for three days in Yokohama and challenged themselves to record the present moment, capturing their personality, their mood, and their love for Japan. The result is eleven tracks of impressive delicacy, split between instrumentals—composed by Sirjacq (with the exception of Kintsugi)—brushing against dissonance and filled with a certain serenity, and Hooson’s very slowcore songs, all taut restraint, including the heartbreaking cover of Kathleen Edwards’ Away.

Now, let’s not beat around the bush: the achievement is even more dazzling than Wintersong. Because while Wintersong was Sirjacq’s reinterpretation—admittedly a beautiful one—of certain pieces from Dakota Suite’s repertoire, it also removed part of the substance of his music, the tension, leaving only the melancholy. Here, The Indestructibility Of The Already Felled corrects what might have appeared as Wintersong’s main flaw. Certainly, it is its logical continuation, but by reintroducing guitars into the equation, Hooson cracks open the silence, putting certain songs at risk (the feedback on My Thirst For You or What You Could Not Know, for instance), not to reveal their beauty—obvious enough in itself—but rather to emphasize their fragility. The same goes for Sirjacq who, by incorporating local percussion (Matsumushi, Mokusho, Crotale) into his delicate playing, adds a dissonance that allows his music to rise toward a near-monastic serenity.

To be honest, the element that seems to make all the difference here is Japan. Not just musically (though it permeates the whole album—witness the magnificent Aiseki) or culturally (that serenity that envelops you with every listen), but above all because it acts as a third presence, redefining the relationship between Sirjacq and Hooson. Whereas on Wintersong, Sirjacq absorbed everything—with Hooson’s consent—here one senses that roles have been recalibrated, each taking in and accepting the other’s differences. What emerges is a diversity, influences previously unnoticed. One might think of Tindersticks on These Night, Red House Painters on Kintsugi, or Nits from the Ting era after a hangover (Silences Are All The Words), albeit without the Dutch band’s virtuosic intoxication.

It is in this balance, this mutual respect, that The Indestructibility Of The Already Felled sets itself apart from Wintersong, by bearing witness to a specific, precious moment in which two musicians, in perfect osmosis, offer the best of themselves to produce a record full of nuance: gentle, tense, melancholic, luminous, and ultimately calming. Faced with such splendor, it hardly matters whether the collaboration between the two continues or not; we’ll need months, even years, to fully explore these magnificent silences. In short, with The Indestructibility Of The Already Felled, one can legitimately say that the new decade has begun in sumptuous fashion."

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recorded in yokohama - japan 2017

piano, percussions, synths: quentin sirjacq

guitar, vocals: chris hooson

all music by quentin sirjacq & chris hooson

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