Simple pleasures can be the greatest pleasures. My cat knows simple pleasure-- some days it's a cold wood floor to lie on, other times it's lying like a baggy, inert carpet scrap in the middle of the landing while people are trying to traverse the stairs. She doesn't really know what it's like to prepare for recreation like we do-- packing stuff in a bag before heading to the beach, or buying tickets to a baseball game and driving forty miles to see it-- and I'm sure she has a lot less stress because of it. Of course, Abby is a cat, and they're somewhat easier to please than we are, but I think the analogy translates quite well to all aspects of human life, including music.
For instance, I can glean a lot of pleasure from something like a Bartok string quartet or a bombastically orchestrated Divine Comedy song, but there are times when all the meticulous planning that goes into music like that just isn't doing it for me, and that's when a disc like this Terminal 4 album comes in. When I'm Falling is the second release from avant-garde cellist Fred Lonberg-Holm's Terminal 4 project, easily his most easily accessible outlet. Anyone who knows Chicago music knows Lonberg-Holm's name from the litany of projects he involved himself in the last decade, from Michael Krassner's Boxhead Ensemble, Ken Vandermark's bands, the Peter Brotzman Tentet, Lightbox Orchestra, Lofty Pillars, and just about anything that ever came out on Truckstop, but go back even further, and you'll find him in New York, studying composition with Anthony Braxton and Morton Feldman and drawing fire from his fingerboard in John Zorn's band.
Suffice it to say his Out music pedigree is about as good as they come, but everybody needs to retreat from that kind of thing now and then, and Terminal 4 is Lonberg-Holm's escape hatch. A four piece band features Lonberg-Holm's cello and occasionally piano, Jeb Bishop's wandering trombone, Jason Roebke's demure bass and the spatial guitar of Ben Vida (Town and Country). The density of Brotzman's tentet is just about the North Pole to Terminal 4's south, as When I'm Falling rarely rises above a simple murmur of two or three instruments. Bishop's trombone usually leads the way, playing melodies that sound almost stream-of consciousness while the other three musicians whirl slowly behind, coalescing into drones and even hitting the occasional rhythmic stride, such as on "This Must Be the End", where Lonberg-Holm's cello kicks up a creaky rhythm before breaking into a searching, plaintive solo.
There are moments when Lonberg-Holm is playing at the top of his instrument's range and Vida strums in swaying rhythms that it sounds almost like Reinhardt and Grapelli conducting a lazy midnight jam in a living room. Dissonance creeps to the fore in short, controlled crescendos, but always gives way quickly to hazy, but consonant melody. Naturally, the constant instrumentation and mood make for a somewhat monotone recording, and it definitely serves better for atmosphere than close listening, but When I'm Falling proves that, while sometimes it's nice to bust out the orchestra and interlocking sixteenth-note patterns, there are also times when four instruments, honestly played, can say even more.
