Satoko Fujii: Second Attempt

Satoko Fujii has spent three decades assembling large ensembles the way other composers assemble scores, treating personnel as raw material shaped alongside melody and structure. Her Berlin orchestra, formed during a 2014 residency, reunites nine years later. Recorded live in Berlin on May 3, 2026, the album closes out a tour Fujii nearly abandoned after a family medical emergency pulled her back to Japan mid-way. It unfolds across five continuous movements, "Part 1" through "Part 5."

"Part 1" opens with patience rather than fanfare. Murmurs shift slowly into overlapping ensemble voices, and only after several minutes does anything resembling a theme emerge from the haze, with Liz Kosack's synthesizers propagating a haunting motif underneath. It is a smart choice for an opening movement, easing listeners into the size of the ensemble and the character of the room before any single voice steps forward. Two-thirds in, the band gels behind Matthias Müller's bold trombone solo, igniting a rabble-rousing free jazz vamp. Across its remaining movements, Second Attempt survives its own circumstances to become something rarer: proof that a large ensemble, given enough patience, can sound less like a wall of sound than a room full of people listening to each other.