The Squid's Ear Magazine


Guionnet, Jean-Luc / Seijiro Murayama: Idiophonic (Ftarri)

The 4th album from Japanese percussionist Seijiro Murayama and Parisian Jean Luc Guionnet, typically a saxophonist but here on pipe organ, presenting three live improvisations named for idiophones, instruments that creates sound by vibrating without the use of strings or membranes, with two improvisations at a church in Berlin and one at a church in Ljubljana, Slovenia.
 

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product information:

Personnel:



Jean-Luc Guionnet-organ

Seijiro Murayama-percussion, voice


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Label: Ftarri
Catalog ID: ftarri-985
Squidco Product Code: 26168

Format: CD
Condition: New
Released: 2018
Country: Japan
Packaging: Cardboard sleeve, sealed
Tracks 1 AND 3 recorded at Friedenskirche Charlottenburg, in Berlin, Germany, June 23rd, 2015.

Tracks 2 recorded at Sveti Jakob, in Lubljana, Slovenia, on September 21st, 2012.

Descriptions, Reviews, &c.

"Seijiro Murayama (percussion, voice) lived in France for many years and is currently based in Paris. Alto sax player Jean Luc Guionnet, who lives in Paris, is also known as a pipe organist. The two musicians have released three CDs to date: Le Bruit du Toit (Xing-Wu Records, 2007), Window Dressing (Potlatch, 2011), and Mishima, Day and Night (Ftarri, 2015). Guionnet played the sax on each of these albums. Their fourth release, Idiophonic, is the first on which Murayama performs with Guionnet the organist. This album contains three improvised pieces. Two of them were performed at a church in Berlin, Germany, in June 2015, and the third at a church in Ljubljana, Slovenia, in September 2012. Murayama plays only the snare drum. (His voice is also heard from time to time on the first track.) The sound of Guionnet's organ--at different times loud, soft, majestic, and rough--is both noise-like and expressive. Murayama, meanwhile, effectively fires out sharp, striking sounds as he switches between sticks and brush. Each of them plays with restraint and a high degree of tension, never producing too much sound. Their musical compatibility, combined with the richly reverberating church acoustics, make for truly impressive performances."-Ftarri



The second disc has two pieces recorded in Berlin and one in Ljubljana; the latter in 2012 and the first two in 2015, which means that Jean-Luc Guionnet (organ) and Seijiro Murayama (snare drum, voice) have been going for some time. Murayama lives in France for years now and so it's easier for them to get around, I would think. Two of their previous releases were reviewed in Vital Weekly 987 and 793, but the difference here is that Guionnet is now playing the organ and Murayama uses his voice, although the latter not all the time. This is not music of the same quiet variety as Thut/Sugimoto, but takes on a rather more dynamic approach. The music can be quiet, for sure, but also piercing loud, although never for a long period of time. Besides their dynamic interaction they also use a variety of techniques to play their music, which makes it all the more interesting. The are stabs at the organ, piercing sustaining high notes or low end bass drone, while Murayama uses sticks, hands and objects to play his snare drum. Throughout they interact in a wonderful way, listening, responding, adding or subtracting to what the other is doing. One can hear they have been going about for some years, as there is much confidence in their playing."-Frans de Waard, Vital Weekly


Get additional information at Vital Weekly

Artist Biographies

"Jean-Luc Guionnet is an elusive figure. A Parisian artist active in many fields (music, visual arts, cinema), he has mostly worked in electro-acoustics but also has a career in free improvisation, playing alto saxophone, soprano saxophone, church organ, and piano. He has collaborated with Éric La Casa, Éric Cordier, and André Almuro on tape music. His main free improv and jazz projects include Hubbub, Schams, Return of the New Thing, and the Joe Rosenberg quintet.

Guionnet made scientific studies before shifting to fine arts. He studied musique concrete under Iannis Xenakis and Michel Zbar, but also pursued studies in philosophy (esthetics) with Geneviève Clancy. His first works date from the late '80s and are mostly collaborations with filmmaker André Almuro (some have been issued by Ground Fault). Then came a lasting partnership with electro-acousticians Éric Cordier and Éric La Casa. Together they wrote the series "Afflux." Guionnet also produces the Ateliers de Création Radiophoniques ("creative radio workshops") for France Culture. His eclecticism has kept him at bay of recognition -- because to the eye of the press it strips him from some credibility and because running careers in philosophy (he was co-director for the review Terre des Signes from 1993 to 1996), painting (he exhibited from 1992 to 1997), and music simultaneously tends to be time-consuming.

The release of an eponymous CD by Dan Warburton's free jazz quartet Return of the New Thing in 1999 on the respected label Leo Records introduced Guionnet to a wider audience. Since then his activities as an improviser have constantly stretched toward the fringes of experimentalism. His participation in the French-Swiss group Hubbub and his duo with guitarist Olivier Benoit (&Un, 2002) follow the school of Berlin reductionism."

-All Music, François Couture (http://www.allmusic.com/artist/jean-luc-guionnet-mn0000231714)
3/13/2024

Have a better biography or biography source? Please Contact Us so that we can update this biography.

"Percussionist Seijiro Murayama was born in 1957 in Nagasaki, Japan. He started performing improvised music in 1972, under some influence of Vinko Globokar and musicologist Fumio Koizumi. After graduated from Tokyo University in 1982 in Urdu studies he toured the USA with Keiji Haino as part of the seminal psychedelic band Fushitsusha. Returning to Japan after a period in NYC he continued playing drums and electronics in K.K. Null's noise/rock band A.N.P. (Absolut Null Punkt), while further exploring free improvisation. A relocation to France in 1999 led to collaborations that extended into dance, theatre and performance as well as ongoing partnerships with musicians Jean-Luc Guionnet, Eric Cordier, Michel Doneda, Mattin, Lionel Marchetti, among many others. After over a decade in Europe he relocated back to Japan in 2013.

His artistic principal is to work with the idea of the plural or inter-disciplinary relationships between music and other disciplines of art: dance, video, paintings, photos, literature etc. In this way, he collaborates with musicians, composers, and sound artists. Improvisation is always the major concern for him, even if it is not his artistic goal. His approach is based on the attention to space and place, to the energy of the audience and to the quality and perception of silence on various levels."

-Fort Process (http://fortprocess.co.uk/seijiro-murayama/)
3/13/2024

Have a better biography or biography source? Please Contact Us so that we can update this biography.


Track Listing:



1. Idiophonic 1 17:45

2. Idiophonic 2 10:04

3. Idiophonic 3 26:11

Related Categories of Interest:


Improvised Music
Free Improvisation
Asian Improvisation & Jazz
European Improvisation and Experimental Forms
Duo Recordings
Piano & Keyboards
Percussion & Drums

Search for other titles on the label:
Ftarri.


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