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Futari: Underground
by Dan McClenaghan
Pianist Satoko Fujii found another perfect musical partner in 2017, in the Berlin-based mallet maven Taiko Saito, resulting, eventually, in their duo outing Beyond (Libra Records, 2021). The pair dubbed themselves “Futari" ('two people' in Japanese). Underground surfaces as their second 2021 release ("prolific" is a word usually included in a description of Fujii's output). Fujii's piano (often prepared) and Saito's vibraphone and marimba push Fujii's “music you've never heard before" approach deeper into the unknown. Taking nothing ...
read moreSatoko Fujii / Taiko Saito: Beyond
by John Sharpe
Right from the off, the confluence of grainy flicker and humming drone signals that Beyond won't be like other vibraphone/piano hook ups. Under the moniker Futari, Japanese pianist Satoko Fujii and her Berlin-based countrywoman vibraphonist Taiko Saito don't so much take the road less traveled as revel in the thickets, brambles and unexpected clearings discovered when they veer off map. Across nine cuts captured in a studio session during a tour of their homeland, they commune in a texture-based syntax ...
read moreFutari (Satoko Fujii / Taiko Saito): Beyond
by Mark Corroto
Futari is the duo of pianist Satoko Fujii and vibraphonist Taiko Saito. It is a Japanese word translated into English as 'two persons.' Both persons are world travelers, adept at navigating beyond their own Japanese culture. Fujii has been at it for years, studying in Boston in the 1980s and her releasing her first recording with mentor Paul Bley, Something About Water (Libra Records) in 1996. With time spent in the US and Europe, Fujii's discography is immense, recording solo, ...
read moreFutari (Satoko Fujii / Taiko Saito): Beyond
by Dan McClenaghan
Satoko Fujii has found a new sound. The prolific and always adventurous pianist-composer teams with vibraphonist Taiko Saito--tagging their duo Futari--for a beautifully surreal journey called Beyond. “Futari" means 'two people" in Japanese. The two people involved connected in the early 2000s, in Berlin, when Saito was a student at the Berlin University of the Arts. A friendship strengthened when Fujii and her husband, trumpeter Natsuki Tamura, moved to Berlin in 2011, settling under the vibraphonist's wings in ...
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