feature photo: Naoto Sugahara
Satoko Fujii continues the revival of one of her longest-running ensembles, a band that pairs the advanced, avant-garde jazz of the pianist leader and trumpet ace Natsuki Tamura with a rock-minded rhythm section of electric bassist Hayakawa Takeharu and drummer Tatsuya Yoshida. Burning Wick (Libra Records) builds on the rebirthed momentum of 2024’s Dog Days of Summer, that ‘comeback’ record that presented a band roaring back from an eighteen-year hiatus still positioned in the vanguard of jazz.
Indeed, the Satoko Fujii Quartet is something of a supergroup in Japanese outlier music circles: Fujii and Natsuki — as readers of this space will know — is a couple at the forefront of progressive jazz for over twenty-five years. Yoshida is the leader and founder of the legendary The Ruins, an experimental noise rock drums/bass duo. And Takeharu — who’s worked with John Zorn — is best known for his long-running participation in the celebrated Dr. Umezu Band, which treats free jazz with generous doses of humor.
So you know you’re for a ride with the Satoko Fujii Quartet, and Burning Wick is eager to take you on it. The gathering storm of “Solar Orbit” is a great display of Yoshida’s flair for channeling the chaos so that it feels purposeful. But more surprises are in store: the entire band hits a rapid succession of notes together to usher in the next phase of this extended form journey full of bursts of energy, solo statements and interludes of reflection.
“Rain In The Wee Small Hours” goes through some maneuvers — such as Takeharu’s warping volume-pedal bass-only intro — before settling into a rock groove that approaches conventionality but Fujii puts enough kinks into it so that it’s too confrontational to be commercial.
“Walking Through The Border Town” begins with the most menacing aural milieu, a floating, wandering about spearhead by a frightening vocal before settling into an off-kilter groove. That all stops to make way for Fujii’s thunderous interlude that serves as a bridge to a faster tempo, bringing the song across the full spectrum of energy. Yoshida’s own spotlight is the explosive release you knew from the beginning that this song was building up to. A return to the slower groove lulls you into thinking there’s normality here until it’s broken up by a brief, ending free form freakout.
The episodic “Neverending Summer” is charged with Yoshida’s unyielding drive, taking command and leading the group through the rat-a-tat charge of note sequences, as Takeharu and Tamura take turns dropping down deluges of chops. “Mountain Gnome” veers toward heavy metal, Takeharu doing his part in creating that vibe with a nasty fuzz bass and bandmembers even howl to make it scarier.
The intro to “Three Days Later” is reminder of the spotless, affecting trumpet that Tamura is capable of. Afterwards comes Takeharu on standup bass and matches him in poignancy. Fujii and Yoshida follow with the same temperament. Tamura and Takeharu pair up and then Fujii Yoshida, with the full quartet finally coming together at the end.
“Burning Wick” is a smoldering tour de force, a typical Fujji composition that hits, reloads and hits again. Of course, it, too, flat out rocks.
When all is said and done, Satoko Fujii Quartet follows the archetype Satoko Fujii blueprint for making such stimulating music: compositions full of drama, wit and sophistication, coupled with performances that alternately follows a radically stimulating script and feeds off the power of individual expression. Only here, it’s done so with the hard punch of a rock-jazz band.
That’s what Burning Wick brings in copious amounts and it’s available now from Libra Records’ online store.
*** Satoko Fujii CD’s and vinyl on Amazon ***
- Soft Machine – ‘Thirteen’ (2026) - March 4, 2026
- Devin Gray – ‘Hz Of Gold‘ (2026) - March 2, 2026
- Triple Blind – ‘Cold Walk’ (2026) - February 27, 2026
