Yukari: Synchronic

A graduate of Manhattan School of Music and now a resident of Switzerland, flute virtuoso Yukari has performed with the likes of Anthony Braxton and Marc Copeland. She was a winner of the 2009 National Flute Association Jazz Flute Masterclass in the USA and has performed at venues such as Carnegie Hall, MOMA and the Tokyo Jazz Festival. The line-up to her debut album Dreams, recorded in New York in 2009, included Greg Osby on alto saxophone.

Synchronic is an impressionistic musical snapshot of New York's Brooklyn where Yukari lived for 13 years. Within the album's intriguing 50 minutes, the listener is treated to a subtle melange of jazz, free improvisation and contemporary classical music. The opener "Les Oiseaux" is as jazzy as this album gets with fluid pizzicato bass from Thomas Morgan and tightly composed ensemble lines, shepherded percussively by Satoshi Takeishi, all underpinning Yukari's limpid flute. "Hurricane" takes on an appropriately wild, staccato format with the flute flowing over a meticulous rhythm section. The relatively languid "Brooklyn Forest" evinces its own hypnotic charm whereas the outro to "363" employs multi-tracked flute creating a swirling mass of colour by the close of the piece.

Five of the tracks, "Celestial," "To Be," "Tasogare," "Union" and "Ocean Avenue" are collective improvisations, but due to the nature of the trio's empathetic delivery it's sometimes difficult to discern which pieces are composed and which are not. The title track, for example, appears entirely spontaneous and free flowing but is not. Yukari's pellucid flute is supported by sensitive percussion and bass throughout and the recording creates an almost continuous stream of meditative sound, sporadically punctuated by moments of exquisite brilliance.