Schwarzwaldfahrt

Reception

Clifford Allen, writing for All About Jazz, described the album as capturing the joy of making music unencumbered outside and the power of recording what could be akin to the first human music, noting that the ability to visualize and share in the experience makes it a unique document in creative music. In a separate review for Paris Transatlantic, Allen called it the highest form of conversation between two men and between man and nature, finding that Brötzmann and Bennink discovered music in the depths of the Black Forest. Eyal Hareuveni of The Free Jazz Collective termed the album iconic and seminal, stating that it radiates an inspiring urgency and a unique sense of rare musical bond and resourceful invention, with the musicians playing in a totally free and playful mode. Spencer Grady of Record Collector remarked that the two forest freaks plainly had a ball, becoming totally inspired by their surroundings in a reciprocal arrangement with the fauna that imbues the music with palpable and infectious fun. Kurt Gottschalk of The New York City Jazz Record wrote that the music is filled with adventure, noting reed duets, percussion jams, scavenged marimbas, natural sounds, and a huge sense of audio space, calling the record abstractly sublime rather than noisy. Daniel Spicer of The Wire observed that Brötzmann and Bennink explore their surroundings with childlike wonder and inquisitive mischief, and that becoming lost in the woods is a way of entering shamanic consciousness, stepping outside of time into an exquisite cosmic present. Carl Brauer of Cadence recounted that on one track the two are heard splashing in the water like kids in a bathtub, and that his 20-month-old son, upon hearing it, ran into the room, said 'rain', looked behind the speaker, and sat transfixed, laughing with delight.