An impromptu duet on New Years’ Day 2024 led to special album in the long discography of two large figures in Japan’s world-class experimental music world. What Happened There? (Libra Records) documents a wild and stimulating encounter between Keiji Haino and Natsuki Tamura at Tokyo’s famed jazz club, the Shinjuku Pit Inn.
Guitarist and singer Haino is an underground noise rock hero in Japan since the 70s who has collaborated with other experimental and free improv titans such as Merzbow, Peter Brötzmann, Derek Bailey and Charles Gayle. Tamura has long been a prominent figure in Japan’s outlier music himself with a career stretching back roughly as far back as Haino’s. But the two had never gotten together to make music until now.
A single suite broken up into four parts, What Happened There? is all about how these strong, singular musical personalities mesh and react to each other. In the first part, Tamura works space and resonance with his characteristic mastery to economically make his notes as impactful as possible. The trumpeter also brings his unmatched colorful character to the horn, extracting every kind of human emotion from it. Haino wrings exotic sounds from his guitar, somehow able to play fluid and rich while also being acerbic; there’s no guitarist like him.
Just as Haino’s improvised vocal exaltations add spice to his guitar, so does Tamura’s homespun percussion complement his roguish trumpet. The percussion doesn’t come from percussion instruments however, as Tamura continues building on his recent discovery of the timbral properties of kitchen utensils and toys.
In the midst of rancor, spurts of real melody breaks out: both artists have an avid interest in folk music forms from around the world and that bleeds through during this performance at times, most notably during Part Three and the latter part of Part Four. Tamura — and perhaps only Tamura — can make a muted trumpet sound so menacing, as he does to launch the fourth section, and then retreats into a vintage, fragile blues mood. Haino closely engages with these pivots not so much with his guitar but primarily with his voice.
The two had scarcely made introductions before sitting down and laying down this music unpremeditated before a live audience, which resulted in so much unpredictable, provocative and instinctual playing. For Keiji Haino and Natsuki Tamura, that’s tinder for a big bonfire of nonconformist creativity.
What Happened There? is slated for release on January 24, 2024. Pre-order/order a copy from here.
*** Keiji Haino CD’s and vinyl on Amazon ***
- Keiji Haino + Natsuki Tamura – ‘What Happened There?’ (2025) - January 15, 2025
- Tim Berne, with Gregg Belisle-Chi + Tom Rainey – ‘Yikes Too’ (2025) - January 13, 2025
- Will Mason Quartet – ‘Hemlocks, Peacocks’ (2025) - January 11, 2025
