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Dreams And Dust: Two From Pianist Izumi Kimura
by Ian Patterson
2025 will go down as a busy year for Ireland-based, Japanese pianist Izumi Kimura. The first half of the year served up the solo album Butterfly Effect (Codama Records) and Glacial Voyage (Between The Lines)--the latter a free-form duo collaboration with guitarist Christy Doran. Both albums favored explorations of mood and textures over virtuosity. Two further collaborative albums once again find Kimura on improvisational terrain, though they are quite different in character. Taken together, these albums are windows onto Kimura ...
Continue ReadingChristy Doran & Izumi Kimura: Glacial Voyage
by Ian Patterson
One was born in Ireland in the aftermath of WWII and grew up in Switzerland on a diet of Jimi Hendrix; the other was born in Japan a generation later and trained in classical music. But neither time nor musical upbringing can drive a wedge between veteran guitarist Christy Doran and pianist Izumi Kimura. Though each has worked in a wide range of different settings over the years--Doran in jazz-rock pioneers OM, Kimura with John Cage's music, for example--what draws ...
Continue ReadingIzumi Kimura: Butterfly Effect
by Ian Patterson
Japanese pianist Izumi Kimura has earned plaudits through her various improvisation-based projects with double bassist Barry Guy, percussionist Gerry Hemingway, and guitarists Christy Doran and Tommy Halferty, to cite just a few of her principal collaborators. But Kimura, a long-term resident in Ireland, is equally compelling when going it alone. Over the years, she has clocked up many a solo concert, but Butterfly Effect marks only the second solo recording in her increasingly impressive discography. It comes fifteen ...
Continue ReadingIzumi Kimura / Barry Guy / Gerry Hemingway: Six Hands Open As One
by John Sharpe
Although dating back to at least Aesop's fables written in 500 BC, the saying that you can know someone by the company they keep remains as true as ever. While Irish-based Japanese pianist Izumi Kimura is the nominal leader, the egalitarian trio on Six Hands Open As One finds her in illustrious company. Bassist Barry Guy and drummer Gerry Hemingway have both led storied careers which defy concise summation, but Guy's affinity for the format is worth ...
Continue ReadingIzumi Kimura, Barry Guy, Gerry Hemingway: Six Hands Open As One
by Ian Patterson
It should come as no surprise that three of contemporary music's great improvisers should obliterate the boundaries between composed and improvised music. This is the second collaboration between pianist Izumi Kimura, double bassist Barry Guy and drummer/percussionist Gerry Hemingway following Illuminated Silence (Fundacja Sluchaj, 2019), a visceral live document where improvisation played out within conceptual compositional frameworks. Six Hands As One charts a similar course, the trio responding to a range of stimuli including the natural elements, poetry and war. ...
Continue ReadingIzumi Kimura: Translating The World Into Music
by Ian Patterson
Music may not be the most important thing in the world, not with all the turmoil that is going on, but it would be hard to envisage life without it. At the very least music can be a balm in stormy times, a distraction from the madness. Plenty of philosophers have waxed lyrical about the importance of music, but perhaps Jack Kerouac was closest to the mark when he wrote 'The only truth is music.' For ...
Continue ReadingIzumi Kimura & Gerry Hemingway: Kairos
by Ian Patterson
In ancient Greek kairos means the right time for action. The word relates both to archery and weaving. It is an apt title for pianist Izumi Kimura and drummer/percussionist Gerry Hemingway's debut duo album, as in-the-moment intent, precision and intricacy course through their dialogues. No strangers to one another, they first played as duo in 2016, and then in a trio with Barry Guy on Illuminated Silence (Fundacja Sluchaj, 2019). Compositional credits are shared, though the structures are really frames ...
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