courtesy of Braithwaite & Katz Communications
Near the end of last week, this site wrote about Hazuki, the solo piano album that jazz pianist Satoko Fujii recorded in her own home under lockdown conditions this past August. At the beginning of the following November, Fujii and her husband, trumpeter Natsuki Tamura, recorded a “duo lockdown album.” The album was titled after one of its tracks, “Keshin;” and, less than a week after the recording sessions, it was released as a digital album on Bandcamp. According to the CD Store Web page on the Libra Records Web site, the physical version of this album will be released this coming Friday, April 9; but my previous cautionary observation about shipping delays is probably still in effect.
The entire album consists of seven tracks, four of which (including the title track) credit Fujii as the composer. The other three are composed by Tamura. I am not sure where any of these pieces are situated along the continuum between improvisation and notation, but Tamura definitely takes the lead when he is the composer! Having already written about Fujii’s “wide variety of sonorities that arise from playing a piano through means other than conventional keyboard technique,” it is important to note that Tamura commands a similarly wide repertoire of sonorities; and the “emergent” sounds that begin the fourth track, “Three Scenes,” are positively spooky. Indeed, in the absence of any visual content, there are times when the ear alone cannot discern which sounds come from Tamura and which from Fujii!
As a result, Keshin is a highly engaging exploratory album; and attentive listeners are likely to come up with discoveries of new sonorities and thematic material with each encounter with this album.
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