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 likeminded masters of their instrument come together in an in-the-moment lyrical conversation between alto clarinet and modular synth, cementing the joyful convergence of two 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 longtime collaborator Jakub Ziolek, making for an immersive and transcendent lost weekend of deep listening.

Released on the eve of the pandemic, the duo’s scheduled live performances across Europe had to then be squeezed in around lockdowns, as the intimate, all-enveloping warmth of their electro-acoustic explorations proved to be a good fit for the fully seated socially-distanced concert settings which proliferated as the world began to open back up. And whenever Waclaw found himself with a day off in London the experiments would continue in Holden’s studio, nudging the pair inevitably towards another release. The collaborative process has proved endlessly instructive, mutually inspirational and richly rewarding for both artists. Theirs is a partnership which thrives in live performance, and both remain keen to schedule further opportunities to explore the improvisational permutations of their new material in a live setting over the coming months, beginning with Poland’s prestigious 3x3x3 concert series in November 2024.

The Holden & Zimpel musical origin stories may on the surface look very different, with Holden first making his name in electronic music as an internationally renowned dance DJ, producer and remixer throughout the course of the noughties, whilst Zimpel was receiving a formal classical education at music schools in Poland and Germany before following his improvisational impulses into the world of contemporary free jazz. But there are also many striking serendipitous similarities in their musical journeys: both young musicians’ first exposure to music came via their piano-playing fathers, and both initially took up violin for a time as a child before settling upon their chosen instruments. Both have had the privilege of immersing themselves in the rich Gnawa musical tradition handed down via Morocco’s Guinia family, with Holden recording first with the late Maalem Mahmoud Guinia and later his son Houssam, whilst in 2012 and again in 2015 Zimpel improvised his way around Poland in a live collaboration with Mahmoud’s younger brother Mokhtar. The traditional music of India has also provided a common source of fascination for the two composers, with Zimpel teaming up with a band of musicians from Bangalore for three raga-jazz fusion albums under the Saagara moniker, whilst Holden’s introduction came via modern day Indian music disciple Terry Riley, and the Mumbai-trained London-based tabla player Camilo Tirado with whom he collaborated on the Riley-inspired Barbican commission Outdoor Museum of Fractals.

And just at the point where Holden began to flirt with jazz improvisation by drafting in a raft of brass and woodwind soloists for the live takes of his 2017 album The Animal Spirits, the hypnotic loops and arpeggios of the electronic world were simultaneously calling to Zimpel. Recent years have seen Waclaw add a pair of critically-acclaimed collaborative albums with one-of-a-kind electronic auteur Shackleton to his expansive oeuvre, as well as embracing the experimental possibilities of modern electronics on his own most recent solo releases: the synthesizer-heavy Massive Oscillations (2020) and the samplemanipulating Trainspotter (2023).

Ultimately it is around a shared love of all things hypnotic and trancey where Holden and Zimpel’s paths converge. Trance is the common thread which runs through their musical predilections, as heard in traditional folk forms the world over, twentieth century minimalism, electronic dance music and improvised jazz alike, and their music exists at the point where all of this good stuff collides. You are invited to join them in trance spaceCiani is a graduate of Wellesley College and holds a Masters in Music Composition from the University of California, Berkeley.