Like many of Satoko Fujii/Natsuki Tamura projects, Kaze is built around not so much around an idea, but rather, a combination of people with ideas. Ten years ago the pianist and trumpet player joined forces with another trumpeter (Christian Pruvost) and a drummer (Peter Orins) from the Muzzix collective to form a collective of their own, capitalizing on each member’s composing acumen and a shared love for daring improvisation.
The Franco-Japanese quartet returns with their sixth release Sand Storm, but this time with a special guest. Laptop specialist Ikue Mori was suggested as a special guest for Paris’ Sons d’Hiver Festival, and although Mori had no previous collaboration with the band, she meshed right away. After touring with Mori in tow across Europe during the winter of 2020, the five leveraged the simpatico developed on the road into a studio product, Sand Storm.
Kaze has always been deft at using conventional instruments as a source for unconventional sounds, structures and interaction. All of those features get amplified with Mori in the mix.
“Rivodoza” begins with a swirling mass — a “sand storm,” if you will — created by Tamura and Pruvost producing as much wind from their horns as notes. Out of the resulting wreckage are the first murmurings of Mori’s laptop and it becomes immediately undeniable that there’s a place for Mori’s electronic brush strokes within this overall sonic painting. Mori blends her artificial churns completely in with the brass, with Orins seemingly knowing which percussion lever to pull for the ever-shifting design. Fujii mostly hangs back until the group ultimately convenes on a motif near the ending.
“Kappa” is an example of a Kaze performance not possible without Mori; she dominates the interstellar whirls and buzzes with sympathetically exotic percussion work from Orins and Fujii’s prepared piano that seems made to dovetail with the guest member. All that washes away for Tamura to perform alone on a clean slate, a series of brilliant runs of abstraction that plumb emotional depths almost unheard of from a free jazz performance. Orins gets more unique timbres out of his trap kit (when does he not?) and his rhythmic motion gets everyone involved. And we’re only halfway through this surprise-filled song in which everyone gets to gleam.
After a series of long-held notes, “Noir Poplar” (live performance above) gets really interesting when Pruvost steps to the fore and delivers an audacious performance projecting pure sounds around which Mori is able to instantly concoct a curtain of circuit-bent timbres that goes together hand in glove. “Noir Soir” is Fujii’s creation, and it’s also where her piano leaves the biggest footprint. Mori finds crevices within the sound to insert herself into, but Fujii’s dramatic flair drives this thing and the trumpets hitch a ride and hang on for dear life.
Dispersed among the 15-minute composed pieces are a trio of two-to-three minute group improvs. Fujii lays down a low-end rumble for “Poco a Poco,” combining with a trumpet trill that signals impending doom that never comes; an uneasy peace breaks out instead. “Under the Feet” is barely there at the start, a barren soundscape conjured by Mori and a wounded trumpet tapping out faint notes accumulating into a thunderous din. And “Suna Arashi” is just good ol’ fashioned piano/trumpet free-form shenanigans bolstered by Orins’ bashing about on the toms.
Satoko Fujii and Natsuki Tamura make many records every year; Fujii alone released twelve in 2018. But they always have something new to say in each release in part because they are so open to allowing new musical personalities to disrupt an existing chemistry in order to forge a fresh one. Peter Orins and Christian Pruvost are like that, too, and that’s why Sand Storm isn’t a repeat of old ideas. Each Kaze album is a reinvention of Kaze.
Sand Storm will drop on September 18, 2020 from Libra Records.
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