Trio San: Hibiki

Put a vibraphone into a small ensemble, listen in and the label "exotica" might come up—that exotic music pioneered by Martin Denny and Juan Garcia Esquivel. The pairing of pianist Satoko Fujii and vibraphonist Taiko Saito—a duo they call Futari—on their two terrific albums, Beyond (2021) and Underground (2022), both on Libra Records, sounded like exotica from the Twilight Zone. There is something about the glowing murk of vibes combined with the out-of-this-world sounds of Fujii's prepared piano ruminations that give those two albums a space-age atmosphere.

On 2023's Hibiki, the Futari ladies bring in drummer Yuko Oshima to create Trio San.

Spaciousness is the name of the game. Trio San make pianist Masabumi Kikuchi (1939 -2015) sound musically garrulous. In the mode of ECM Records, with its customary five seconds of silence to open most of the label's albums, Hibiki's eponymous opening track does not start making discernable noise until roughly a minute in. From there, rumination and patient exploration rule.

Fujii, with a discography which has grown to over a hundred albums, has the potential to explode—almost any of her big band albums attests to this. But she can also bask in the prettiest minimalism—an approach which is on display, in the forefront even, with Hibiki, She has often stated her wish to make sounds we have never heard before. She does so again on Hibiki, her engaging take on what could be called twenty-first-century lounge, space-age, exotica music.