Almost Waking, a dreamlike and intimate collaboration, unites Guatemalan cellist Mabe Fratti, 34, with US guitarist Bill Orcutt, 64, a veteran of experimental music. The album emerged after Fratti praised Orcutt's work in a 2024 interview, leading to a file-sharing partnership that reveals a deep kinship between the two musicians.
The album centres on conversational duets between Fratti's cello and Orcutt's guitar. On tracks like Forced & Forced & Forced, Orcutt's aggressive, string-snapping style is matched by Fratti's fragmented bow-scraping. Elsewhere, on Steps of the Sun, the instruments harmonise tenderly, trading lead roles with the phrasing of a sung duet.
Fratti's soaring vocals appear on two tracks: El Inicio Es Cuestión de Suerte, a stately ballad over a looping guitar melody, and Todo Puede Ser Error, which features a jangling Orcutt solo. These songs demonstrate how Orcutt's adversarial style can work in more melodic settings, while the instrumentals highlight Fratti's natural fit within his spidery world.
Though Almost Waking feels like an aside for both artists, it reframes them in a wonderfully alive-sounding album full of agitation, complexity and uncanny chemistry.
