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This Is It!: 1538
ByThe music remains typically Fujii-esquea rambunctious stew of explosive group dynamics and interludes of gorgeous piano ruminations beside prickly percussive keyboard moments. There are also fleeting, bright splashes of notes, odd noises from extended techniquesfrom Fujii and Tamuraand driving rhythms in a wide array of time signatures. All this usually in the same song.
The title tune opens the disc with a scratchy whisper from Tamura's trumpet, drawing the sound in the direction of a post-cataclysm soundtrack, like the noise of the cosmos ten minutes after the Big Bang. It is chaos that coalesces into a dark, turbulent beauty in an extended piano solo. Itani enters with a "out-in-the-kitchen-makin'-noise-with-the-pots-and-pans" mode, while Tamura comes in hissing and sputtering. It is music that is idiosyncratically beautiful and calamitous at the same time.
"Prime Number," the second tune, is a jittery, mechanistic foray, like robotic assembly line mechanisms going off kilter with crossed signals from errant computer inputs, and "Climb the Rapids" has an odd, jumpy majesty, with Tamura playing his trumpet straight and clean and open.
Satoko Fujii is ridiculously prolific, almost Sun Ra prolific, even without a CD-per-month mandate. She has released somewhere in the neighborhood of eighty recordings since 1997. This project, beginning in January with Solo (Libra Records, 2018), has lifted her artistry to a new levelwith six more CD releases to go. New bands pouring out new music in a torrent. Always fresh, always adventurous.
The closerand the longest tune on the CD "Yozora," opens with an extended drone (via Fujii's inside-the-piano string machinations is the guess) leading into spare and inward keyboard pianism. Then the switch gets flipped, and the ensemble blows into a hard-driving, near-mainstream sound. As it gains momentum, it becomes an exhilarating ride, one that tapers down to a slow glide, with Fujii and her piano creating the loveliest sounds.
Track Listing
1538; Prime Number; Climb The Rapids; Riding On the Clouds; Swoops; Yazora.
Personnel
Satoko Fujii
pianoSatoko Fujii: piano; Natsuki Tamura: trumpet; Takashi Itani: drums.
Album information
Title: 1538 | Year Released: 2018 | Record Label: Libra Records
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Satoko Fujii/This Is It!
CD/LP/Track Review
Dan McClenaghan
Braithwaite & Katz Communications
1538
Libra Records
Satoko Fujii
Todd Nicholson
Natsuki Tamura
Takashi Itani
Sun Ra