Kaze & Ikue Mori

Reconvening via pandemic restrictions, the Kaze quartet and on/off associate Ikue Mori create five tracks which seamlessly blend singular pre-recorded sounds with live improvisations. Kaze – trumpeter Natsuki Tamura and pianist Satoko Fujii from Japan plus drummer Peter Orins and trumpeter Christian Pruvost from France – have played together for more than a decade and Mori has recorded with Tamura and Fujii. So the question of what’s pre-recorded and what’s played live hardly affects each band member’s compositions for this disc. With a basic blueprint agreed upon by all, the fact that the Gallic duo’s concert used the others’ music files could be a preview of a singular benign promise of AI.

Throughout the disc group interaction is frequently pulled aside not only for individual expression, but often for international duets. For instance “No Twist” both trumpeters’ half-valve vamping meets shakes and rubs from cymbals and drums. Later on, one brass player expels flatulent growls while the other sticks to linear emphasis. “Rolle Cake” feature similar stand-offs as a pedal point piano intro emphasizes a near honky-tonk feel as radio-wave-like whistles and electronic slides emanate from Mori’s equipment. Pivoting to piano string strums and drum ruffs, the piece is completed as Fujii returns to her original comping as the brass players accelerate to triplet expression.

These intermittent blends are what really defines Crusatal Movement and makes the live-verses-earlier-created-sounds locus almost moot. Along with the brass duality, there are frequent instances where programmed voltage slithers and gongs, drum clips and clanks or dramatically emphasized keyboard runs serve as backing to textures which weren’t there when the sounds were originally created. Likewise, recessed obbligatos, expanded triplets or recessed internal blowing from either trumpeter which appears to be applications or responses to what has been created by the others, somehow blends, even if these timbres initially existed on their own. Disengagement is also not heard when Fujii quickly turns from stopped piano keys to linear development following a near steel drum-like percussion addition; or when Mori’s shaking wave form whistles and static hisses seem to be accompanying trumpet blasts which were detonated after her oscillations were initially recorded.

Obviously the key to profound composition and improvisation is live human response and this quintet has and will excel at instances of that. But if unforeseen situations like the one that produced this session can be overcome with computer and internet wizardry, then perhaps music in some ways has less to fear from the wired future than is imagined .

–Ken Waxman

Track Listing: 1. Masoandro Mitsoka 2. Motion Dynamics 3. Rolle Cake 4. Shifting Blocks 5. No Twist 6. Crustal Movement

Personnel: Christian Pruvost and Natsuki Tamura (trumpet); Satoko Fujii (piano); Peter Orins (drums) and Ikue Mori (electronics)