Scott Amendola: Fade to Orange

Fade to Orange began as a commission performed in 2011 by the composer, Scott Amendola (drums and electronics), Nels Cline (Wilco’s lead guitarist), Trevor Dunn (electric and acoustic basses), and the Oakland East Bay Symphony. To keep the piece growing, Amendola organized recording sessions in Berkeley, Oakland, and Brooklyn, augmenting his power trio (aka the Nels Cline Singers) with the Bay Area’s Magik*Magik Orchestra (six violins, three violas, two cellos, and bass), a wind section of French horn, clarinets, flute, trombone, and trumpet, and William Winant’s avant-garde symphonic percussion (marimba, glockenspiel, timpani, concert bass drum, tubular bells, and “jolliness”). The result is 17 minutes of now-ephemeral, now-orgasmic jazz- fusion and post-rock that owes less to orchestral landmarks by Miles Davis and Charles Mingus than to space-rock (the Japanese band Ghost comes to mind) and the downtown skronk of 1980s New York. To fill out the CD and side two of the sonically richer 160-gram vinyl LP, Amendola commissioned four remixes by Mocean Worker (Adam Dorn), John Dieterich (of Deerhoof) and Drake Hardin, Yuka C. Honda (of Cibbo Matto), and Beautiful Bells (Justin Peake); each stands as a trip in its own right, teasing out different aspects of Fade to Orange’s multifaceted personality.