By Richard Blute
How could I pass on this album? It has a wildly enigmatic title with a
horror movie vibe. (I’ll bet you didn’t know “werewolf” could be used as a
verb.) And it has Jörg A. Schneider on drums.
I first discovered Jörg Schneider through the band Roji, a duo with bassist
Gonçalo Almeida. Their first album The Hundred Headed Women is a
favorite of mine, as is the follow-up Oni. Their music lives
somewhere in the intersection of harsh noise, thumping metal and improvised
music. It’s a pretty great intersection.
Schneider seems to especially enjoy duos with guitarists. There’s his 2025
album This Ain’t My First Rodeo, Pal! with Michel Kristof, the
project The Nude Spur with Thomas Kranefeld and his pair of albums
with Dirk Serries, Schneider-Serries I & II. The
Schneider-Serries
albums in particular are year-end list calibre good.
But perhaps his most significant drum-guitar duo is his ongoing project with
Sebastian Fäth, called Teen Prime. They have 10 releases, helpfully
numbered 1 through 10. Listening to some random tracks off their bandcamp
page, I hear fine examples of the great variety of music that can be made
with this simple combination of instruments. At times, I hear Derek Bailey
in one of his many duos with drummers. Then maybe a Gang Of Four
riff. Then maybe a bit of Steve Reich’s Electric Guitar Phase.
That brings us to Let’s Just Werewolf Them. Jörg and Sebastian had
recorded what was intended to be a Teen Prime album. But they
realized that what they had produced was a “more intimate, low-key
gathering” than a typical Teen Prime recording. So they invited
Yvonne Nussbaum, who had previously worked with Jörg on the projects
Skim
and Wolfskull, to overdub her piano playing. It was a great
decision.
The track “a single life in a single body” is beautiful. Schneider’s
drumming skitters in the background while Fäth’s guitar style is almost
ambient. Nussbaum’s pensive and plaintive piano feels like the completion of
a thought. On the final track “as for parameter”, Fäth’s guitar starts off
repeating a simple, minimalist riff which he then builds up in complexity
and intensity, with Schneider matching him along the way. Nussbaum’s
peaceful piano is keeping the listener grounded, until eventually the album
ends on her playing a final few quiet notes.
The whole album contains depths I am still finding. Highly recommended.