James Holden & Waclaw Zimpel

British synth wizard James Holden meets Polish clarinet guru Waclaw Zimpel to form Holden & Zimpel: a collaborative alliance wherein these two versatile modern composers might explore their deepest improvisational urges in an intimate setting, to strikingly lush, hypnotic and deeply emotive effect. Two like-minded masters of their instrument come together in an in-the-moment lyrical conversation between alto clarinet and modular synth, cementing the joyful convergence of their disparate musical journeys in an explosion of raw musical creativity in its most primal form.

Long established in their own respective fields of electronica and jazz, Holden & Zimpel’s paths would first cross at the 2018 edition of The Hague’s Rewire Festival, where mutual feelings of respect drove the pair to seek each other out for an introduction. Their first recordings happened later that year in Holden’s London studio, during four snatched days of between-shows downtime for Waclaw, where the pair committed to laying down one composition a day to gradually assemble a four track EP of deliciously krauty in-the-moment improvisations. The resulting richly textured Long Weekend EP pitted Holden’s handmade modular synth rig against Zimpel’s multifariously expressive alto clarinet, judiciously supplemented by organ, voice, assorted percussion and (on Tuesday & Wednesday) the Balearic-tinged guitar playing of Zimpel’s long-time collaborator Jakub Ziolek, making for an immersive and transcendent lost weekend of deep listening.