Even voorstellen - Dear Uncle Lennie – Behind the barn grew three little trees
Camille-Alban Spreng, Benjamin Sauzereau, Marco Giongrandi feat. Joachim Badenhorst
'Behind The Barn Grew Three Little Trees', single
BMC Records / Sonic Rendezvous
Release date: 10th September 2025
behind the barn grew three little trees - Album van Camille-Alban Spreng
Dear Uncle Lennie, a trio born out of the prolific Belgian jazz scene, experiments with the power of classical songwriting and storytelling without words through short instrumental forms. Their second album, 'Sister Juniper' (release on 26th September), is a collection of intimate snapshots: behind the evocative song titles, an entire family epic emerges. The miniatures are accompanied by longer compositions with complex narratives, and Joachim Badenhorst’s guest appearance on clarinet also contributes to the expansion of the band’s universe. 'Behind The Barn Grew Three Little Trees' is the single of the new album.
Two siblings kids share their youth years with three little trees, planted by their dear uncle just before they were born. trees and children share the same discovery of what life could be, as a kid, as a tree, witnesses of the same cyclic storms of joys and disappointment. For their entire life, those recurring trans organic reunions will be like small inner pilgrimages towards a land of peace filled with blurred memories and distant laughs.
Composition by Camille-Alban Spreng, Benjamin Sauzereau, Marco Giongrandi
Camille-Alban Spreng: piano, keyboards
Benjamin Sauzereau: guitars
Marco Giongrandi: banjo
Guest: Joachim Badenhorst: clarinets
Recorded and mixed at studio La Patrie by Koen Gisen
Mastering by Frederik Dejongh at Jerboa Mastering
Artwork: Anna Natter / Cinniature
Produced by László Gőz and Camille-Alban Spreng
Label manager: Tamás Bognár
Dear Uncle Lennie is a trio formed in 2022 by pianist and composer Camille-Alban Spreng with guitarist Benjamin Sauzereau and Marco Giongrandi on banjo. The three musicians share many common projects and over the past 10 years have developed a common affinity for intimate and sensitive music, experimental research and creation of new musical languages. The trio released their first album in 2022 on Yolk Records (Victoire du jazz 2019 - Best Label). The project was awarded Revelation Jazz Magazine in the December 2022 issue, 4 stars in Le Soir, and the music was broadcast on France Inter, Fip Radio, Musique 3, BX1, Klara, etc. It was also well received by the public, which allowed the project, after a first Belgian release tour (Ghent, Brussels, Antwerp, Grimbergen, Eupen), to do another tour in Italy in March 2023 at the invitation of the Bergamo Jazz Festival (Bergamo, Milano, Genova, Brescia). Over the years, the trio has developed a unique group sound and proved to be a fantastic creative playground. These experiences inspired them to collaborate with Antwerp clarinettist Joachim Badenhorst and Ghent producer Koen Gisen on a new album 'Sister Juniper' to be released on BMC Records.
The trio's main idea is to create a repertoire inspired by small, compact and highly evocative poetic forms, and to apply to it a folk universe and a narrative imaginarium borrowed from the classic era of songwriting - in addition to exploring the acoustic possibilities of a small ensemble composed only of strings, adapting the language of finger-picking (a typically guitaristic technique) to piano playing, and generating a trance effect by blurring the acoustic boundaries between the different instruments. In addition to the influences already present on the first album (Joanna Newsom, Leonard Cohen, Sufjan Stevens, Sam Amidon), this new repertoire with Joachim Badenhorst includes other influences from improvised music (Fred Frith and Oren Ambarchi in particular) and jazz (Bill Frisell).
At the core of the Dear Uncle Lennie project is the desire to create a warm, wholesome, unique and welcoming environment during the live shows; a fireside where stories can be told. The trio, enhanced by the presence of Joachim Badenhorst, conjures up this imaginary world to arouse curiosity and invite audiences to take an interest in new music and new forms. In this sense, through the evocative titles of the songs, the hyper-narrative compositions and the atmospheric quality of the concerts, Dear Uncle Lennie has created a world with its own characters, its own stories and its own fantasy world. As Jacques Prouvost put it in a review after the album release concert in Brussels in December 2022: "The power of this trio is to take you into the unknown without losing you. To thrill you without scaring you. It is a (concept) concert in the form of a children tale or rather for adults who have retained a child soul."
Live:
24th October, Jazz Station, Brussels (BE)
29th November, Un Peu, Brussels (BE)
7th February, Opus Jazz Club, Budapest (HU)
https://bmcrecords.hu/en/albums/dear-uncle-lennie-sister-juniper
BMC Records in association with IGLOO Records
Supported by Fédération Wallonie-Bruxelles