Warren Thomas Fenzi - "Live in the Atrium" | Review

There's a reason cutting a record, live on the floor, has the vibe it does, because you are putting lighting in a bottle. So when musician and engineer Colin Loynachan approached multi-instrumentalist Warren Thomas Fenzi about trying to capture that magic, the pair went all out with Fenzi's newest project, Live in the Atrium.

"I wanted to approach this project differently to that of past projects," Fenzi told Ear Coffee. "The main goal being to really capture the human aspect of acoustic performance in all of its imperfect glory."

Loynachan, Fenzi, the Kremblems (his backing band), and the Delphia Cello Quartet set out to record the album in the four-story-high atrium of the A-Mill Lofts, where they not only put music to tape but also shot a series of videos that feel less like individual performances and more like film vignettes. Fenzi's knack for storytelling combined with the vision of filmmakers Alex Munro, Garrett Wells, and Charlie Berg put in an elegant space became a perfect storm of pure artistic expression.

The weight of the atrium is apparent from beat one of the record's first track, "Summer Wading." Fenzi's delicate voice and lightly picked guitar feel so fragile that I held my breath out of fear for breaking the moment. Even with the strings and rest of the band, the song feels as tender as the memory it pulls from. "Summer Wading" has Fenzi looking back at growing up in Arizona as summer begins. The image is tinted with a sense of longing and anticipation that only hot summer nights can bring.

The songs on Live in the Atrium all fall into his desire to gain understanding from hindsight. Fenzi says, "memories, both good and bad, hold positive power in the sense that when looked at through the perspective of trying to understand, in hopes that it may inspire our present actions, gives every experience meaning."

The album's third song, "The Cubicle," is the first to find shadows among the easy summer sunshine on tracks one and two. The jazzy ballad details a dream that doesn't quite work out. The lyrics, "Because four little walls can make you / Rich / Eventual," sting as they lead into Daniel Chavez's mournful trumpet solo. What should've been a wonderful opportunity slowly turns "Cubcle"'s subject into an image of the cookie-cutter American dream - put in your time, make your money, and retire at 65 to try and the live the life you dreamed at 20.

Summer turns to fall over the next few songs as rifts grow in the budding relationship detailed earlier in Live in the Atrium. The greenery is starting to succumb to drought. "Blacken the Sun" has Fenzi praying for rain to revive the things that have started to wilt. "Peelin' Away" plays like a direct call back to "Sunday" with the lines "You've got your 'sweetness' song / But you just don't get it / It's been too long / I've been away." Time and distance, either emotional or physical, has taken away the oasis that he once had.

As gently as Live in the Atrium opens, it closes just as unassumingly with "I Was New." Winter is now here and Fenzi is left looking back on the events of the last six tracks. He's taking in all the joy of those hot summer nights and budding love, the pain of growing apart and the dream not quite working out. "Ultimately, it's a calling for us to take a look at ourselves, be honest with ourselves and hold grief, pain, happiness, and love, all in the same," Fenzi said. "I think that's where true peace comes from. Not a blind, candy-coated happiness, but a heavy, firmly rooted sense of peace, birthed from the understanding and recognition of both sides of every situation. The 'good' and the 'bad'."

Live in the Atrium was done with the mindset of presenting a collection of incredibly introspective songs in the most honest way possible. It's live with no overdubs and limits the group to only acoustic instruments. This record really embodies the idea of capturing everything in its imperfect glory. Even without the videos, the whole project feels like it's been stained in sepia and begs to put on film. Warren Thomas Fenzi created the three non-performance videos for "Summer Wading," "Peelin' Away," and "I Was New" himself. Personally, these vignettes add not only a visual representation to Fenzi's narrative, but they amplify the collection of live performances to being a more cohesive piece of cinema. You aren't just hearing Fenzi tell a story, you are watching a home movie.

Live in the Atrium was released over the course of seven weeks between February and April. You can watch a playlist of the videos below or pick up the record on Bandcamp.