Kaikou (onyva 2018)

Yoshino – biwa, voice
Natsuki Tamura – trumpet, voice, bells

It would be hard to place this recording into any categories, so I won’t even try. But that’s a large part of why it’s so fascinating. The interplay between traditional Japanese biwa, the strident twang and hard pluck of the strings mixes strangely well with freely played trumpet. It’s a marriage of two wildly different worlds—Japanese traditional music and avant-garde free jazz.

It mixes as best it can, which is wonderfully at times and contrasting at times, but it’s a mixture that you couldn’t imagine. Until you hear it. And then, there’s the chanting and vocals, which reminds you that this is both ancient music and contemporary music at the same time.The interesting part of this duo is how they take their instruments, including their voices, in new directions. Yoshino turns the biwa to new expressiveness with a unique way of playing, which uses the strings, plectrum (bachi, in Japanese), the pegs and body all come alive in ways that are startling.

The biwa sounds make you sit up, and the rhythms create potent tensions as your ears wait for resolution, which arrives when you least expect it. Her vocals are startling, beautiful in a way that you haven’t heard before. It sounds deeply serious, but there’s the joy of creation in every note.

Tamura unleashes the trumpet to make sounds from deep inside the instrument, wailing at times, breathily wheezing out tones, and bellowing like a fog horn over the water. There are moments of straight, western style notes, of course, but those are placed in patterns and timings that are not western, and not exactly eastern, either.

The first listening of this recording disrupts all expectations, especially for listeners not accustomed to Japanese traditional music or free improvised jazz. But successive listening reveals the interplay of these two accomplished musicians and the deep creativity they bring to their collaboration. The emotional layers of the music peel back to reveal great depths of warmth and poignancy. In this age of mixed genres, it’s hard to be truly sui generis, but that’s what this recording is, and what it does superbly.

(March 7, 2020)