photo credit: Michael Topyol

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“There was nothing before, and now there is everything,” Yuvi Havkin, the synthesizer mastermind best known as Rejoicer, says, while sipping coffee outside a dual café-flower shop on the streets of Tel Aviv. He pops up from his chair as he describes the creation of Foursome, the new album from his band of effects-obsessed groovers, Buttering Trio. The Trio’s singer, Keren Dunietz—who records as KerenDun—perpetually keeps her cool, a knowing calm that manifests in her effortlessly ethereal singing. But together, along with the Trio’s bassist Beno Hendler and newest member, drummer Amir Bresler, the musicians have a lot to get excited about—the “spontaneous creation” that Rejoicer has just described has led to the band’s best album yet, more than a decade into their existence.

Foursome arrives on Raw Tapes, the homespun Tel Aviv label that Rejoicer and KerenDun co-founded in 2008. And it’s the first to feature live percussion, an addition that shoots the band’s deeply chilled, sexy, psychedelic grooves further into space than ever before. All of which make it hard to swallow that the album’s 12 tracks were conceived and recorded spontaneously, live in the studio, in fits and starts during 2020.

Buttering Trio was born in Germany, just as spontaneously. It was 2010, and like so many young Israelis, Rejoicer and KerenDun decided to leave Tel Aviv and set up shop in Berlin— two cities that have formed an unlikely partnership in recent decades. “In both Tel Aviv and Berlin, people are trying to forget some of their shadow,” KerenDun says. “We’re all trying to party away our sorrows— doing a lot of drugs, sitting in coffee shops and living very un-serious lives. And we were high all the time, eating these little buttered buns.”

“Schrippen!” Rejoicer says excitedly, remembering the German word. “You always remember breakfast because you just woke up. So we became Buttering Trio.”

The Party Bear EP arrived in 2011, a wonderfully weird, playful collection of chopped up samples, video game bleeps and bloops, and funky, hiphop swagger. By the time they returned to Tel Aviv, Buttering Trio was already causing a stir. Their 2013 debut LP, Toast, arguably marked the beginning of Israel’s indie scene—a band more obsessed with J Dilla and Flying Lotus than any of their hometown heroes. The record brought KerenDun’s saxophone playing into the mix; it immediately paired perfectly with Rejoicer’s looped beats and Beno’s face-scrunching funky bass. Almost overnight, they were a hit at home and buzzing in Europe.

But with 2016’s Threesome, Buttering Trio entered a new phase of exploration. They settled nicely into their sound— mellow, cosmic funk, with KerenDun’s sensual lyrics and coolly soulful singing front and center. Their label grew as well and became a home to many of Israel’s outsider beatmakers and surrealist musicians, and all three musicians dove deep into outside collaborations and other experiments—solo and side projects abounding. That, KerenDun admits, was always the point.

“The fact that we’ve always balanced so many projects allows me to enjoy all these emotions and musical journeys to the fullest,” she says. “It’s really polyamory versus monogamy. One person doesn’t need to be expected to fulfill all your different needs or desires.”

In 2021, for example, she dropped an EP with Israeli pianist Nitai Hershkovits— five experimental vocal jazz compositions. “My songs with Nitai were these mysterious, weird and jazzy songs,” she says. “Then, going back to Buttering, I was so ready to make something simple and sexy—I tasted the weird stuff. My avantgarde chakra was opened, so it could influence my songs in Buttering Trio.”

Between Threesome and Foursome, one of the Trio’s favorite collaborators became far more than that—an addition that has changed everything. Drummer Amir Bresler is one of Israel’s most in demand and creative percussionists. After playing some Buttering Trio Plus One shows with Bresler following Threesome’s release, the Trio asked him to give their new songs both a live writhing and an unpredictable kick.

“We used to run shows with my programmed beats, and honestly I got sick of it,” Rejoicer says. “And Amir is a beast. So in the studio, our music has a whole new soul. My beats were in our DNA; it’s like we’ve reinvented our genetic makeup.”

“The drum loop stuff started to make us loopy,” KerenDun says with a laugh. “We couldn’t improvise. So with Amir, everything is more alive and dynamic. We were really invited to play.”

In 2020—as the coronavirus lockdowns continued to start and stop in Israel—the four musicians entered the studio for several two- or three-day stints. Nothing was planned; they just let the grooves flow freely and blossom organically. Rejoicer says that they followed just one rule: “If it doesn’t come together quickly, and easily, it’s a no-go.”  

If Buttering Trio’s older songs pulsed or lurched, then Foursome’s flutter. Tracks like “Come Hither” feel weightless, but deeply grooving, with Rejoicer’s keys echoing and quivering, Bresler’s percussion everywhere at once and KerenDun singing lines like, “Baby, I think I might be going crazy/ All I desire is to be your first, quench your thirst, break the curse/ Baby you amaze me.” It’s the soundtrack to a fever dream—or at least a sure-fire song for your latenight playlist.

The band sat on Foursome throughout the pandemic’s darkest days, releasing it in July 2022 via Raw Tapes. Its cover was the last puzzle piece—an original, huge oil painting made for the band by a local street artist, Tant from the Broken Fingaz Crew.

“We told him: With Foursome, we saw the four elements, the four seasons. And he painted for the music: It’s an orgy. It’s Greek gods drinking wine and having a feast up in the mountains,” KerenDun says. It’s also the best teaser for the album they could imagine—Buttering Trio’s own Bacchanalia, right here on earth.