Taiko Saito: Tears Of A Cloud

In 2021 Japanese-born, Berlin-based mallet virtuoso Taiko Saito received a well-deserved profile bump via her teaming with pianist Satoko Fujii in a duo tagged Futari, on Beyond and Underground. both on Libra Records. The marimba player & vibraphonist returns in 2023 with a solo outing, Tears Of A Cloud, an arresting follow-up to the Futari outings.

Saito has found the key to artistic success by taking a handful of inspirations—her mentors Prof. Keiko Abe and Prof. David Friedman, the compositions of Kenny Wheeler, traditional Japanese music, tea ceremony, ikebana, etc. She pulls in these orbiting influences and puts her art together to make her own sound. Uncompromising originality is the result.

Tears Of A Cloud is spacious music, deliberative and way off the beaten path, hinting at some form of nondenominational spirituality, a mallet religion which makes time stand still, full of unexpected textures, holy resonances and colors we have never heard or seen before. This is free jazz (more accurately perhaps free music), but it is an engaging experience which pushes the boundaries of expectations. She finds beautiful sounds with off- center, otherworldly, sometimes asymmetrical rhythms that gel into fragile structures which sound like the scaffoldings upon which our surreal dreams are built. Or they could be the soundtrack to her life. We all live inside our own movies; Saito's movies—her soundtrack to that creative life—celebrate mystery, clarity of vision and rejection of blueprints and "best-laid plans" in favor of discovery and surprise combined with a wide-ranging sense of wonder.