German, Berlin-based double bass player Alexander Frangenheim has worked as an improviser since the late 1980s and has been a member of experimental ensembles such as vario-34, vario-50, and Zeitkratzer. He is also the founder of the contemporary music festival Concepts of Doing and the owner of StudioBörn45 in Berlin.
Fellow German sax player Stefan Keune dedicates himself to free improvised music and is a member of seminal ensembles such as XPact and King Übü Örchestrü, alongside his many collaborations with innovative improvisers like John Butcher, Mats Gustafsson, Raymond Strid, Paul Lytton, and Peter Kowald.
Frangenheim and Keune met in Berlin in October 2024, when Frangenheim was substituting for a concert with King Übü Örchestrü. Their interest in each other’s playing was immediate, leading to two sessions at Frangenheim’s StudioBörn45 in February and July of 2025. Keune played on sopranino and tenor saxes. Frangenheim recorded the two sessions and also did the cover artwork (the album is titled new traces).
The eleven duet pieces suggest deep, nuanced, sometimes quite subtle and cryptic, but always urgent and intense conversations of two kindred souls. Both Frangenheim and Keune are well-versed with the art of the moment, equipped with their own, invented extended breathing and bowing techniques, and are fearless improvisers determined to keep expanding their own rich languages. These exploratory duets sound as if Frangenheim and Keune relied on their immediate chemistry, experimented with resonant timbres, and insisted on leaving no aspect of their musical relationship untraced, processed, and fully explored.
As with all the scatterArchive releases, new traces is offered with the pay-what-you-can-afford policy.
Frangenheim / Keune – new traces (scatterArchive, 2026)
