Pianist, composer and bandleader Satoko Fujii has made so much music of beauty and complexity but her stated goal is rather straightforward (and ambitious): “I would love to make music that no one has ever heard before.”
Her latest release Piano Music is one of those Fujii records that aspires to meet that mission. Using a prepared piano to play
Piano Music is ironically an un-ironic title, because the sonorities are very un-pianolike even though 100% of it was produced by a piano. Further, this doesn’t sound like improvisation, yet it is.
These things hold true despite the ears insisting that they are not, because Fujii had skillfully edited her recorded improvised performances, pulling together shards of prepared piano into two extended pieces that are coherent and often melodious and always exotic.
“Shiroku” is certainly not your ‘basic’ piano music. Drones, symphonic backdrops, random dissonant yips, piano notes contorted to sound alien, harmonizing metal wire scrapes and more combine for an ambient by somewhat unsettling sonic experience. The last few minutes take something of a turn, whereby the sounds are apparently coming from manipulating the strings inside the piano, making it appear that the instrument being played is some type of zither instrument, like a koto. But not in the way a zither is normally played.
“Fuwarito” begins with a swirl of prepared piano commotion, where Fujii could very well be forgoing the keys altogether and conjuring up calamity strictly from inside the piano. This is contrasted a little later by clipped notes and at some points, Fujii can be heard strumming the strings like piano. But there are too many fresh new sonorities she is able to wring from the prepared piano to list here, and thanks to the magic of editing, she is freely moving among all these tonal hues. Fujii artfully arranges them — varying density, timbres, cadence — to evoke a kaleidoscopic array of feels.
The genius of Satoko Fujii can be rendered through a full jazz orchestra playing her scores or a single piano with no music contemplated beforehand, as was done for Piano Music. With a prepared piano, Fujii once again makes “music that no one has ever heard before.”
Piano Music will be available September 17, 2021 from Bandcamp and Libra Records.
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