Satoko Fujii’s genius can be difficult to encapsulate on a single record. We may finally have a good starting point with ‘Hyaku: One Hundred Dreams.’

This is obviously not music for all tastes but if you know about Fred Frith and Ikue Mori, then you know how good they are at making noise; for ‘A Mountain Doesn’t Know It’s Tall’ they make beautiful noise together.

A global pandemic hasn’t quelled the creative fire of Ikue Mori, Satoko Fujii and Natsuki Tamura, and their long-distance collaboration ‘Prickly Pear Cactus’ doesn’t sound at all like musicians trying to just ‘make do.’

Satoko Fujii and Natsuki Tamura always have something new to say in part because they are so open to allowing new musical personalities to disrupt an existing chemistry.

The word ‘Mahobin’ means ‘thermos bottle’ but also ‘magic bottle’ in Japanese, and the magic made for ‘Live at Big Apple in Kobe’ that retained its passion throughout meant that this fledgling group had lived up to both meanings of the name.

Here’s the part of the annual Best of 2017 lists that’s the most fun to pull together.

Four masterfully intuitive musicians who regularly aspire for greater heights with each venture reach the summit together on Satoko Fujii’s ‘Aspiration.’

Only a year after celebrating fifty years on Earth, master cellist Erik Friedlander faced the premature departure from Earth of his wife, choreographer and writer Lynn Shapiro. You May Also Like: Mary Halvorson and Sylvie Courvoisier – Crop Circles (2017) Tim Berne – ‘inSOMNIA’ (2011): On Second Thought