Naoshima / Takeda / Kawasaki / Takeuchi / Koike / Kawaguchi / Totsuka

Septet

Label: Ftarri/Improvised Music from Japan Country: Japan

Meena is an offshoot of the Improvised Music from Japan label, and is essentially the same as the other IMJ related label, Ftarri, that put out the excellent Axel Doerner Toshimaru Nakamura Vorhernach CD, as well as the wonderful tonal improvisational release from The International Nothing. Septet is an onkyo or lowercase release of an incredibly minimal group improvisation from seven players, consisting entirely of faint sounds and silences from beginning to end. It's a suprisingly fascinating listen that calls for concentration and attention to detail.

"This CD is a document of a studio-recorded improvisation session. All seven musicians play extremely quietly. (They would probably play this way in a live performance, too.) So quietly that almost all of the "played" sounds are softer than the sounds resulting from the physical action of playing music--the touching of instruments, the rustling of clothes, etc. So quietly that outside noises which faintly penetrate into the sealed recording studio can be heard over the music. In this music it's extremely unclear what is going on. It's as if someone had secretly recorded the sound of office work. Sounds occur, but the musicians themselves may not be completely sure whether they were produced intentionally. This really is a curious document. It isn't the kind of playing that brings out the atmosphere of the performance venue. The focus here is on the softness, or near-inaudibility, of the sound. Very soft sounds do not linger, physically or psychologically. They contain too little energy to reverberate, and leave a weak impression because they tend not to remain in the listener's memory. This is the unique quality of quiet sound. So perhaps this is an attempt to look closely at quiet sound as an element of music or performance. It is certainly not the kind of music that attempts to elicit subtle listening--if it were, the background noises would not be offhandedly left in. Interestingly, though, the character of the music slowly emerges as we listen. And gradually we find that we are focusing on a fresh, new form of improvisation."-From the liner notes by Toshiya Tsunoda