Monthly Archives: July 2018

Harutaka Mochizuki | Makoto Kawashima LP

Harutaka Mochizuki | Makoto Kawashima
LP “Free Wind Mood” series
Label : An’archives
Réf : [An’14]
ltd to 275, comes in a heavy old style silkscreened jacket with obi (black, dark green or grey), postcards & inserts. Printed by Alan Sherry, liner notes by Michel Henritzi
release date : July 7th , 2018

During the past decade, a number of free music players in Japan have fiercely, with no compromise, continued to grapple with the questions that lay at the heart of the solo saxophone recital: how to tease and tear new formations out of the interface between human breath, human flesh and skeleton, and the instrument itself, its keys, holes, pads, reed, and brass body.
With Free Wind Mood, An’archives splits one vinyl record down the middle, giving a side each to two of the most rigorous, exciting, and committed players from the scene: Harutaka Mochizuki and Makoto Kawashima.
While there are elements of their playing that places them in a history of Japanese free blowing, from Kaoru Abe through Masayoshi Urabe to now, they both have a singular voice: Harutaka more stringent and tart, Kawashima, perhaps, more melancholy. Tellingly, they’ve both intersected with rock music and free sound ensembles, with Kawashima working alongside Nishizawa Naoto of EXIAS-J (Experimental Improvisers’ Association of Japan), while Harutaka has worked in a duo Tomoyuki Aoki of psych-rock group Up-Tight, and guitarist Kondo Hideaki (also of EXIAS-J).
But both of them have made their most massive strides forward with their own solo releases, Kawashima’s potent Homo Sacer one of the final releases on PSF, and Harutaka’s Pas LP and Through The Glass CD exploring new terrain for the nexus of breath and brass. Moving on from those releases, Free Wind Mood is a devastating listening experience, blood and guts on the floor as the players fully inhabit the architecture of the space, and of the self, and play like their lives depend on it.
Jon Dale

SOLD OUT

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Fuji Yuki – Michel Henritzi – Harutaka Mochizuki CD

Fuji Yuki – Michel Henritzi – Harutaka Mochizuki
Shiroi Kao
CD ltd to 250
Free Wind Mood  series
Label : An’archives
Ref : [An’15]
7 inch silkscreened jacket with obi blue, red or grey), insert and postcard
Printed by Alan Sherry
release date : July 7th, 2018

SHIROI KAO

 Disque hivernal, fleurs et flocons, il y a le bleu du ciel où le souffle s’évapore, épouse les nuages blancs, le cristal de la voix et les notes cuivrées  tomberont comme une neige humide sur un temps passé, quelque chose n’est plus et pourtant.

 Souffles de la voix et d’un saxophone alto, calligraphies soniques dessinées sur la page blanche du silence, griffée par les cordes d’un lapsteel mélancolique. Courbes et tourbillons ascendants, appelant l’orage. Quelque chose pleure, un alto au bord du gouffre, on ne renonce pas à ce qui nous hante, ça nous appelle, nous tient comme au bout d’une corde.

Harutaka Mochizuki est comme un asphyxié, écoutez le ! Il joue des phrases tristes sur cette pierre tombale, ce wall of noise. Le bruit assourdissant des larmes et du cœur, tout çà coule là dans l’embouchure, le pavillon débordant de notes maigres, de pétales de chrysanthèmes, de stridences, d’étouffements.

Puis une voix semblant sourdre d’autres temps, Fuji Yuki  ectoplasme flottant dans le murmure du crépuscule, nous prenant la main contre son cœur, lied infiniment mélancolique, ses longs cheveux noirs la recouvrant, échappant à la terre qui nous tire à elle. Elle flotte, Ophélie noyée, ondine serpentant vers une mélodie apaisée. Cordes frottées, un écrin de soies et de rouilles s’enveloppant autour de sa voix, au loin s’en vont les nuages. Il reste le corps flottant, visage blanc, infini paysage, les ombres dévorantes qui gagnent. D’anciens folklores joués pour cette danse oubliée, cordes percussives, glissendi plaintifs.

Un banjo au loin rappelant la tourbe de l’existence. Etait-ce toi, ces voix ? Le sax reviendra dans la ronde, la voix tue, s’accordant au lapsteel dans un jeu de miroir brisé, deux soliloques entendus à travers un brouillard de tristesse, le crépuscule nous appelant à rejoindre nos ombres.

Michel Henritzi assis dans l’antichambre face à ce visage blanc silencieux, la barre glissant sur les cordes, les notes mourant avec le souffle du sax. Un feedback qui meurt ou est-ce nos pleurs …

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SHIROI KAO

 Winter record, flowers and snowflakes. Here is the blue sky into which the breath evaporates and kisses the white clouds, the crystal voice and the brass notes will fall like a wet snow on a long gone time, something vanished and still…

The breathing of the voice and the alto sax, sonic calligraphies drawn onto the white page of silence, scratched by the strings of a melancholic lapsteel. Ascending curves and whirls, calling the storm out.

Something cries, an alto on the edge of the abyss, you don’t give up on what haunts you, it summons you, holds you at the end of a rope. Harutaka Mochizuki is almost asphyxiated, listen to him !

He plays sad phrases on this tombstone, this wall of noise. The deafening sound of tears and heart, all of this flowing into the estuary, the bell overflown by lean notes, chrysanthemum petals, shrillness, mufflings.

Then, a voice that seems to arise from other times, Fuji Yuki, floating ectoplasm in the whisper of dusk, taking our hand onto her heart, her song of infinite melancholy, her long black hair cloaking her, escaping from the soil that holds us back.

She floats, like a drowned Ophelia, like a female spirit winding towards a relieved melody. Bowed strings, a net of silk and rust wrapping around her voice, and faraway, clouds drift.

The floating body remains, pale face, infinite landscape, devouring shadows spreading. Ancient folk songs played for this forgotten dance, on percussive strings, plaintive glissandi.

A distant banjo recalls the peat of existence. Was it you, these voices ? Sax will come back into the circle dance, the voice kills, tuning to the lapsteel in a broken mirror play, two soliloquies heard through a smog of sadness, with dusk calling us to merge with our shadows.

Michel Henritzi assis dans l’antichambre face à ce visage blanc silencieux, la barre glissant sur les cordes, les notes mourant avec le souffle du sax. Un feedback qui meurt ou est-ce nos pleurs …

Michel Henritzi, sitting in the antechamber in front of this white silent face, the bar sliding across the strings, notes dying in the sax breath. A feedback loop dying, or is it our sobs ?

SOLD OUT

CD Shiroi Kao 

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