feature photo: Bryan Murray
Electronics whiz Ikue Mori has been a favorite collaborator of late to Satoko Fujii and Natsuki Tamura, and they included her in three of their recordings in the past three years; the latest was her special guest billing on a superb Kaze album from earlier this year. Prickly Pear Cactus, however, is the first collaboration between the three and no one else. That leaves them with a trio unlike any other trio: piano with trumpet…and a laptop.
It had been inevitable for a while that we would encounter such a record, but Prickly Pear Cactus is an album made in the Covid-19 age. The three met the obvious challenges of recording together by Mori in New York exchanging audio files with Fujii and Tamura in Kobe, Japan. With challenges, of course, also come opportunities. Co-composing winds up being putting together most of a jigsaw puzzle and sending it that way halfway around the globe for the other party to complete.
Honestly, it’s a little weird to hear 100% artificial noises in close proximity to an acoustic, analog piano and a trumpet. Sure, they got together many times before, but the contradiction becomes more striking in this smaller setting, with pieces expressly written to take advantage of that. However, that strangeness translates into freshness once you wrap your mind around that idea.
Sounds you might hear from an 80s space movie along with orchestral movements are the first sonorities coming out of “Prickly Pear Cactus,” but Tamura’s labored trumpet and Fujii’s episodic piano quickly assimilate into it. As Fujii asserts herself, it’s Mori who is doing the complementing moves. Tamura again creates false notes that sound just as circuit bent as any of the otherworldly bleeps and whirs coming from Mori’s laptop. Fujii uses a prepared piano “In The Water” as Tamura’s muffled growls blends in with that and Mori’s sparkly sounds which midway through turn darker as Fujii’s piano does the same.
Tamura sits out on several tracks to make this large parts of this record a Mori/Fujii duo. A placid mood prevails on “Sweet Fish,” but Mori’s alien noises make it an uneasy kind of placid. Mori negotiates effectively Fujii’s fickleness on “Guerrilla Rain.” “Overnight Mushroom” is nocturnal and spectral at the outset, but Fujii’s development into something with more tension is matched by Mori’s own adjustments in temperament. A song strong enough to stand up on its own with piano alone, the electronics bring it into another realm; the same goes for “Empty Factory.” “Turning” is clearly a Fujii creation, showing her elegantly flowing classical style, oddly contrasted by Mori’s seraphic adornments.
A global pandemic hadn’t quelled the creative fire of Ikue Mori, Satoko Fujii and Natsuki Tamura, and Prickly Pear Cactus doesn’t sound at all like musicians trying to just ‘make do.’ Prickly Pear Cactus is now on sale, from Libra Records.
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