In the emerging running collaboration between Satoko Fujii and Alister Spence, a pattern is also emerging: Fujii plays piano and Spence assumes roles that change from project to project. For Intelsat, Spence handled the Fender Rhodes and effects. That was quickly followed up by Imagine Meeting You Here, where Spence played no instrument at all but composed the music and conducted a 14-piece orchestra. Any News is the latest, and Spence counters Fujii’s piano with his own piano.
Recorded just this past September after more than a year and a half of plotting, Any News is the sound of unity: a one mind/four hands sort of unity. Fujii and Spence don’t compete against each other, they layer over each over. That’s especially remarkable since they weren’t even in the same country — much less same studio — when they made these recordings that were instead conducted remotely over the internet between Fujii’s Japan and Spence’s Australia.
There are surprises at every turn. “Dice Piece 2” is diffused and laid back while the immediately following “Across The Equator” is dense and kinetic for the most part.
It’s easy to forget that “Improvisation 1” is, well, an improvisation, as it also has a strong sense of direction and simpatico, and the same could be said for “Improvisation 2.”
The melody of “The First Day of Autumn” wanders in a way very similar to a Matthew Shipp strain, and they similarly place emphasis on carefully deployed chords and dramatic spurts to give the song a natural ebb and flow. Some ‘inside the piano’/prepared piano action can be heard toward the end of “The First Day of Autumn” as well as the beginning of “Improvisation 2.”
On the shorter, low-key pieces like “Dice Piece 3” and the “Dice Piece 1” it’s difficult to tell there are two players at work here, their two voices are so completely integrated.
“Puzzle Piece” is aptly named, as they are able to fit together their respective parts tightly, whether in unison or with counterpoints. “Ping Pong” showcases the two at their friskiest together, like Cecil Taylor in surround sound.
From two very fertile musical minds come endless ways to approach a duet. Satoko Fujii and Alister Spence don’t even need to plug in and be in the same room to make theirs compelling.
Any News is now on sale through Bandcamp.
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